Title : Telling difficult news
Abstract:
Telling happy news is fun and usually easy. Telling difficult news is not fun and never easy but in some ways is more important, both for the one who says it and the one who is meant to hear it. How difficult news is told makes all the difference as to whether and how it is heard. Difficult news is not synonymous solely with bad news, a subtle distinction that has to be understood. In the trauma surgery where I worked and in other medical services with emergencies, telling someone a loved one is likely to survive an unexpected event is still telling difficult news. Difficult news is told not only by health care providers. In a country with a population of 300 million, it can be expected that 2 million people will lose their lives in one year, and the 8 million people in their immediate families will receive and convey this difficult news to other family members. Telling someone that a loved one has died is obviously bad news. Telling someone that a loved one has had a close brush with death, but is expected to live may seem at first to be good news. In reality, however, this is still very difficult news. Even if the prognosis is favorable (which is hard to predict with absolute certainty), there are many losses of time and control that are not easy to measure, but are still very real and daunting. For someone who has had a heart attack or an injury, there is a sense of both uncertainty and loss of control. Virtually any conversation in an Emergency Department or an Intensive Care Unit can involve difficult news.
