Doctors who deliver bad news should do it better
Monday, March 9, 2009 - 02:21
in Health & Medicine
Many patients are unhappy with what they've heard and with the unfeeling way the information was presented. Doctors should be trained to take emotions into account. When a close friend went in for exploratory surgery recently, her doctor told her there was nothing to worry about. In fact, he was so unconcerned, he planned to perform the surgery laparoscopically -- that is, with only minor openings. But during the surgery, he found cancer. By the time the operation was over, he had abandoned the original approach in favor of a much larger incision, removing her uterus and ovaries as well.