How To Break Bad News: A Guide for Health Care Professionals (Heritage) - Softcover

Buckman, Robert

Softcover

ISBN 10: 0802067905 ISBN 13: 9780802067906

Publisher: University of Toronto Press, 1992

Synopsis

For many health care professionals and social service providers, the hardest part of the job is breaking bad news. The news may be about a condition that is life-threatening (such as cancer or AIDS), disabling (such as multiple sclerosis or rheumatoid arthritis), or embarrassing (such as genital herpes). To date medical education has done little to train practitioners in coping with such situations. With this guide Robert Buckman and Yvonne Kason provide help.

Using plain, intelligible language they outline the basic principles of breaking bad new and present a technique, or protocol, that can be easily learned. It draws on listening and interviewing skills that consider such factors as how much the patient knows and/or wants to know; how to identify the patient's agenda and understanding, and how to respond to his or her feelings about the information. They also discuss reactions of family and friends and of other members of the health care team.

Based on Buckman's award-winning training videos and Kason's courses on interviewing skills for medical students, this volume is an indispensable aid for doctors, nurses, psychotherapists, social workers, and all those in related fields.

About this title

Review

"This short, easy-to-read book... has a great potential to improve the way clinicians understand the process of breaking bad news. The book features clear writing, believable examples, and practical suggestions... Clinicians of every specialty and skill level will benefit from How to Break Bad News. Further, it should be required reading for all medical students and residents who plan to take care of people." -- Annals of Internal Medicine

"In his fine book, Robert Buckman... presents a well-organized, thoughtful, and readily assimilated approach to breaking bad news... At last, we have a wise, useful, readable textbook on the communication of unpleasant information... Buckman has treated an enormously important and complex topic in a sensible, practical, and engaging fashion. Sophisticated concepts are put forth concisely, clearly, and simply, with relatively little jargon... This thoughtful and stimulating presentation will be appreciated by all clinicians faced with the difficult task of sharing bad news." -- New England Journal of Medicine

"This is an exceptional and important book that excels in its organization, readability, practicality, value, and relevance to family medicine... The book would be helpful (and should be required reading) for health professions students, residents, and junior practitioners of all specialties, but the text is so practical that even seasoned clinicians (perhaps unaware of suboptimal communication styles) would benefit." -- Family Medicine

Review

"An expert in breaking bad news is not someone who gets it right every time; she or he is merely someone who gets it wrong less often, and who is less flustered when things do not go smoothly." -- from the Introduction

About this edition

• Publisher: University of Toronto Press
• Publication date: 1992
• ISBN 10: 0802067905
• ISBN 13: 9780802067906
• Binding: Paperback
• Edition number: 2
• Number of pages: 234