The Bad News Doc

In the field of medicine one can be faced with many issues. Everything one does can change a person’s life for better or worst. I have always wondered how doctors handle different situations. How do you tell a woman she has cancer or a family that their child has a disease that could take their life? Is then a handbook on what to say? Is this something doctors learn when they are in school? How should a doctor handle bad news?

Many patients that are faced with bad news do not really hear much of what the doctor is saying after the point they realize it is bad. When cancer patients, for instance, hear that they have a disease that could possibly kill them, they really don’t hear what can be done to save them. What a doctor says is very important. It can affect the way a patient fights.

If a doctor comes in a says that a patient has cancer and there is nothing that can be done about it then the patient might leave the office and start planning for their funeral. Whereas if a doctor tells a patient they have cancer and only they can control how that effects them then the patient might put in their head that they are going to fight this diseases and have a speedy recovery.

I myself have had the same issue. I was born with sickle cell anemia. Many people who have this disease cannot take part in many sporting events. When I got to an age where I started to see my fiends playing sports I decided that’s what I wanted to do. My parents took me to the doctor to see what he thought about it and he told us that with the proper training and comment I could do what ever I wanted to do. After a year of nutrition training and physical training I was ready to play sports. Since the age of eight I played baseball, football, and basketball. I was a six time all-star in baseball and won 4 league championships. I won two championships in football and one in basketball. I even wrestled one year in middle school and finished fourth in the city.

So I know how important a doctor’s words can be. If that doctor would have told my parents that it was risky and that many kids with my condition couldn’t or shouldn’t play sports I would have stayed looked up in my house with nothing to do. I would have had to sit and watch life pass me by.

So when it comes to kids with serious diseases how does a doctor go to the parents and tell them that their child might not get the opportunity to do things that other kids do? How does a doctor tell a mother that their newborn child has a condition that she caused but at the same token she had no control over?

The key is to not sound so negative. When a doctor takes a negative approach when giving bad news they evoke a feeling of helplessness on their patient. To help make the news a little easier to digest a doctor should go in with solutions and ways that the baby can lay a normal healthy life. Also it helps if the doctor doesn’t make it seem like it’s the patient’s fault. In some cases it may be, but blaming them at that very moment only makes the situation worse.

When giving bad news to a patient it is good to have family around. Family is going to be a big influence on what a patient does after leaving the doctor’s office. Sometimes a family member hears thing the doctor says that, for one reason or another the patient doesn’t this could help with the emotional part. Also having family there and seeing the reaction can help a doctor decide how the news will be handle and recommend different treatments to help.

For example if a doctor tells a patient that they have diabetes and a family member is there then maybe the family member will help make sure the patient follows the proper diet and exercise. If the family member gives off a negative vibe then maybe it would be better to recommend the patient to see a nutritionist to help them plan out a diet.

Being in the medical field is a hard job. When you discover something with a patient only makes the job harder. But what is said and done after that discovery is made can affect a person’s life in many different ways. It can send them into a state of depression, or make them determined to change.

Many of these decisions depend on how a doctor communicates the news to their patient. Doctors must be sensitive and open-minded. They must be able to realize that the proper medical analysis is not always the right approach. Taking the proper approach when it comes to delivering bad news to a patient is key. When done right it can add minutes, days, even years on to a life.