Few physicians or patients question that a stable, long-term physician-patient relationship is a good thing. Despite this, these relationships are increasingly rare. The demands of electronic documentation, the stress created by the myriad ways that patients can access their physicians today, and the declining reimbursement for primary care all make maintaining a long-term practice challenging. At the same time, our increasingly mobile society and the restrictions on physician choice imposed by payers make remaining with the same physician difficult for a patient.

I am, therefore, a bit of an anomaly. I have cared for the same panel of patients for more than 20 years. My situation is happenstance鈥攑robably as much related to an admirable dedication to my patients as to a lack of energy or ambition. I could spend pages arguing why the trend toward more temporary relationships is misguided. I would postulate that longer relationships lead to improved job satisfaction and better patient outcomes. I would quote my own patients who regularly take pride in the number of years we have been together. I would recount stories that reveal how I am a better physician when I care for a patient I know well than when I care for a patient I have only just met. Instead, I will make the argument for persevering in a practice for a less commendable, though possibly more convincing, reason. Caring for the same group of patients for decades makes the work easier.