Next April Nursing Times and the BMJ will publish special joint issues on doctors and nurses working together. Both publications have explored the relationship before. Both are again keen to understand when the partnership works well, where it fails, and how it can be improved. As such, we are collaborating in assessing and editing articles for this joint theme issue. We welcome original research on doctors and nurses working together in different healthcare settings, highlighting how, where, and why good practice develops. We want to encourage reflections on bringing down barriers: What needs to change to make partnership a reality? Or ispartnership itself a misguided goal in the healthcare field? Doctor, nurse, patient—these three roles have always been at the heart of effective health care. Understand them as a household, 19th century nurses were often told. The husband-doctor …