The Relationship-Centered Care Research Network

Sillitoe's metaphor of individual sacrifice, singular focus and hard work applies in equal measure to traditional thinking about how to achieve success in a research career. Planning for the Relationship-Centered Care Initiative began in the spring of 2001 with the two co-principal investigators who conceived of a project that would involve two arms: applying Relationship-Centered Care principles to changing the culture of a large medical school and creating a relationship centered care research network. By design, the research network included individuals with different professional and methodological orientations. Logistic support and day-to-day management of the project fell to the project manager, Dave Mossbarger. While the effects of physical environment have been studied in many settings such as classroom design, instrumentation in aviation, and hospital design for patients with dementia, scant attention has been paid to the effect(s) of physical context on developing and sustaining research and research relationships.