ruby on rails - Proper Setup of Active Record Associations for a Doctor-Patient Survey Model -

i having trouble building active record associations doctor -> patient relationship.

doctors can create assessments patients. before create assessment, must choose template (for type of injury). template has_many :questions, , question has_many :answers.

so models are: user, patient, assessment, template, question, answer.

the user --> patient relationship pretty straight forward, i'm having trouble the template, assessment, questions, , answers. i'm pretty confused 'has_many :through'. i'd able call template.questions list of questions given template, also able call assessment.questions (instead of assessment.template.questions).

then can filter through assessment.questions answers.

here current model associations. current setup isn't allowing me call assessment.questions (which thought taken care of has_many :questions, :through=> :templates).

what need change in order call assessment.questions ? accepting other feedback on architecture.

thanks

class user < activerecord::base   has_many :patients   has_many :assessments, dependent: :destroy end  class patient < activerecord::base     belongs_to :user     has_many :assessments, dependent: :destroy end  class assessment < activerecord::base   belongs_to :user   belongs_to :template   belongs_to :patient   has_many :questions, :through=> :templates   has_many :answers, :through=> :questions   accepts_nested_attributes_for :answers end  class template < activerecord::base     belongs_to :assessment     has_many :questions end  class question < activerecord::base   belongs_to :template   has_many :answers end  class answer < activerecord::base   belongs_to :question end 

personally, way. may not understanding goal, think do:

class doctor < activerecord::base     has_many :assessments     has_many :patients, :through => :assessments end  class patient < activerecord::base     has_many :assessments     has_many :doctors, :through => :assessments end  class assessment < activerecord::base     has_many :templates     belongs_to :patient     belongs_to :doctor end  class template < activerecord::base     has_many :questions     belongs_to :assessment end  class question < activerecord::base     has_many :answers     belongs_to :template end  class answer < activerecord::base     belongs_to :question end