A Northern Medical Program at UNBC researcher is undertook two studies to understand how rural medical practitioners manage personal relationships with their clients.
“I’m intrigued by overlapping relationships, also known as dual roles. I was raised in a farming region and took on a variety of healthcare roles in my hometown of about 2,000 people where I needed to navigate overlapping personal and professional relationships,” said UBC Northern Medical Program Associate Professor Dr. Andrea Gingerich.
“As educators, we see students confronted by overlapping relationships in their clinical education. Teaching them to navigate dual roles is challenging in the absence of best practices, and our regulatory bodies warn us to avoid overlapping relationships to prevent boundary issues.”
The project team included Dr. Sean Maurice from the Northern Medical Program and Robin Roots from the UBC Master of Physical Therapy program, along with students from both programs.
They also conducted extensive interviews with rural practitioners to find out how they navigate extensive interviews with rural practitioners to find out how they navigate ethical situations in the context of rural practice.
“We know practitioners in rural, northern and remote communities are navigating overlapping relationships, but we didn’t know how they were doing it,” Gingerich explained.
“We interviewed family physicians and physiotherapists, including those who had returned to their hometowns to practice or who had lived and practiced in a small community for decades, and identified several strategies that they used to regulate their multiple personal and professional roles while maintaining professional boundaries.”
“The research has helped inform opportunities in the curriculum to better prepare physiotherapy students for clinical placements nad practicing in rural communities through a better understanding of how physicians and physiotherapists in rural practice navigate ethical situations,” Roots noted.
The research findings will also help facilitate further discussion on the impact of boundaries on rural practitioners’ personal and professional spheres.
Gingerich said they want to initiate conversations on policies concerning overlapping relationships, and propose developing best practices for navigating overlapping relationships while maintaining boundaries that protect both the practitioner and the patient.
Related research projects are currently underway to further examine how rural practitioners can best navigate dual roles.
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