How to Break Bad News: A Guide for Health Care Professionals

John H. Gryfe is an oral and maxillofacial surgeon practicing in
Toronto.

“Bad News [is] any news that drastically and negatively alters the
patient’s view of his or her future.” The impact of such news
depends on the gap between the patient’s expectations for the future
and the “medical reality of the situation.” Over the past seven
years, physicians Buckman and Kason, individually and together, have
taught medical students communication skills. Drawing on numerous
case-history scenarios, in this book they propose a six-point protocol
to assist the health professional in the necessary but emotionally
difficult task of communicating bad news to the ailing individual and
his or her loved ones. These guidelines, in their words, represent “an
approach that is (1) practical . . . in daily clinical situations, (2)
based on some coherent and consistent principles, (3) intelligible, (4)
teachable and (5) learnable.”

Despite increasingly improving treatment and management modalities,
health-care professionals deal with numerous patients whose future is
far from rosy. This book is a useful guide to facilitating the
patient’s acceptance of a poor prognosis through a compassionate and
thoughtful delivery of the “bad news.”