The contemporary nurse-physician relationship: insights from scholars outside the two professions.

The contemporary nurse-physician work relationship as it has been studied through the perspectives of non-clinician scholars during the later 1980s and 1990s is analyzed. Five categories of published works from sociologists, anthropologists, medical historians, psychologists, communications specialists, and other non-clinicians who have investigated this major influence on contemporary health care work environments are evaluated. It is suggested that a more consistent review of these types of works from nonclinicians may enable nurses and physicians to more capably study the longstanding organizational and professional variables that may still be affecting this facet of their individual practices.