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

About the Author

Robert Buckman, MD is Medical Oncologist, Toronto-Bayview Regional Cancer Centre.

Edition details

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