Wednesday, June 24, 2009

Communicating With Cancer Patients: When the News Is Bad

Communicating With Cancer Patients: When the News Is Bad: "The SPIKES protocol represents a series of steps for giving bad news. They represent a consensus of what is in the literature with regard to best practices when one has to talk about a very, very difficult bad-news situation to a patient. It's more of a guideline for clinicians as to how they might proceed, in the same way doctors learn how to complete the necessary steps to do a spinal tap, for example, and do it correctly, and to complete it in a way that's safe for the patient. So SPIKES is a series of steps that represent one approach to giving bad news."

It's always hard to break bad news. This useful protocol helps doctors to prepare before talking to patients and their family - and helps them to do a good job !

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