Breaking Bad News

AADMD INFO BLAST - FOR AADMD MEMBERS

Medicine is all about communicating! Sometimes the clinician is faced with communicating "bad news." This CME program from ModernMedicine addresses the communication techniques in delivering bad news. Many of the tenets are applicable to patients with intellectual and developmental disabilities; for instance they are very intuitive and your body language, demeanor is often all they need to experience. Certainly the other skills are applicable to communicating with parents, siblings, conservators and support staff. AADMD welcomes input from its members regarding additional suggestions in this area.
Rick Rader, MD, AADMD Past President

Physician's Focus: Bad News—How to Deliver It Well
Publish date: Mar 17, 2010

To help sharpen physician communication skills, ModernMedicine presents expert advice on breaking bad news to patients, along with related insightful content.   Patients with a poorer prognosis recall less than other patients, regardless of age, and the more information the physician gives a patient, the less they recall.  This can create situations where patients don’t absorb important information, such as about treatment and follow-up, and may be unable to pass it on to family members or caregivers.

How to communicate bad news to patients
How to deliver bad news to patients in such a way that it won't be all they remember and to ensure they understand the diagnosis and treatment plan.

How to communicate risk to patients
Counseling patients on risks needs to be more than just obtaining informed consent. Every patient deserves to hear the potential positive and negative outcomes of a procedure or treatment using language and data that can be easily understood.

BLOG: Breaking bad news
A physician’s eyes and face reveal the truth as soon as they step into a patient’s room.