Knowledge of breaking bad news is an essential requirement to any medical practitioner. Disclosing bad news improperly can negatively affect the patient, the caregiver, and the family. Unveiling information about death and diagnoses of diseases such as cancer can be challenging for health care practitioners (Abazari et al., 2017). Thus, healthcare practitioners are trained on how to improve their communication skills and learn how to break the bad news to the patients and loved ones.
One of the aspects involves creating a good relationship with the person intended to receive the news. This helps health care professionals to develop an excellent foundation for any problematic conversation which can be experienced when interacting with affected individuals. Another aspect entails creating empathy with the patient or the loved ones. Humans have feelings and emotions, which are crucial aspects that health providers should consider because they determine how the recipient will be affected by the news. For instance, death news can primarily affect the recipient, and health care providers must ensure that they disclose the information appropriately (Abazari et al., 2017). In this case, the physician should try to understand how revealing the news will affect the recipient. This can be achieved by the health practitioner understanding the recipient’s situation and designing excellent ways of breaking the bad news effectively.
Being frank, compassionate, and speaking in simple terms are vital virtues that a physician should have. These aspects help the recipient understand the message better and learn ways of overcoming the information’s adverse effects. The physician should also ensure that they answer the questions that the receiver may ask to guarantee that they fully understand and accept the news no matter how bad they are. Oncologists have also been encouraged to ensure that they educate the recipients about coping with challenges steered by the information.
Reference
Abazari, P., Taleghani, F., Hematti, S., Malekian, A., Mokarian, F., Hakimian, S. M. R., & Ehsani, M. (2017). Breaking bad news protocol for cancer disclosure: An Iranian version.Journal of Medical Ethics and History of Medicine, 10(1), Web.