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Surgeons not good at delivering bad news - Brief Article

Although nearly 90% of the time it is a surgeon who tells a patient he or she has cancer, general practitioners are more sensitive when relaying bad news and are more helpful to patients, according to a July 1, 2002, news release from the Royal Society of Medicine. A study of 106 patients diagnosed with advanced cancer reviewed their experiences with diagnosis and their perceptions of the physicians treating them. Researchers asked patients to rate their experiences of hearing the diagnosis and rate the most and least helpful physicians they had seen. Of the 13 physicians characterized as "most helpful," eight were general practitioners. All seven of the physicians rated "less helpful" were surgeons. Surgeons were more likely to be rated poorly than nonsurgical specialists or general practitioners. The study found that patients who had extremely positive or extremely negative experiences of being given their diagnosis were able to remember vivid details of the event even years later.

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General practitioners may be more sensitive in delivering bad news because they have established a rapport with their patients which surgeons are unable to match; however, researchers believe that surgeons may lack important communications training because of the apprenticeship model used to teach junior physicians in hospitals. The study suggests there are implications for providing communication skills training for physicians who are most likely to have to deliver bad news to patients.

GPs are Better at Breaking Bad News (news release, London: The Royal Society of Medicine, July 1, 2002) http//www.roysocmed.oc.uk/new/pr110.htm (accessed 2 August 2002); M Barnett, "Effect of breaking bad news on patients' perceptions of doctors," Journal of the Royal Society of Medicine 95 (2002) http:/www.jrsm.org/cgi/content/abstract/95/7/343 (accessed 2 August 2002).

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Surgeons not good at delivering bad news - Brief Article

AORN Journal, Sept, 2002

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