Historically, medical education has focused on acquiring knowledge of basic science and clinical medicine. Relationship management skills are an essential aspect of excellent clinicians that may have been overlooked in the educational curriculum and undervalued in practice. The complete clinician model is a theoretical model for clinician development that describes why knowledge acquisition and relationship management are both imperative skills to refine when progressing to be an excellent clinician. Four quadrants are described, with ideal progress going from the trainee quadrant to the golden quadrant, ultimately aiming for competence in both knowledge acquisition and relationship management. The pediatric resident milestones from the Accreditation Council for Graduate Medical Education were placed in the model to underscore the importance placed on both knowledge acquisition and relationship management skills. Relationship management training should be integrated into the medical curriculum. This model may be applicable to professional education in other health care disciplines.
