Comments on: How To Break Bad News

By: Doc Gurley – Holding a Death in Your Hands: What Autopsy Reports Tell Us about How Someone Lived « « Doc GurleyDoc Gurley

Tue, 26 Apr 2011 21:18:49 +0000

[...] Barring any unforeseen acts of extreme violence, most of us will never have one of these reports written about us. In some ways, that’s a shame. An autopsy is the only true way we learn, in the very end, if what we thought we were treating is actually what was going on. Asking for permission to do an autopsy used to be automatic, part of the process of breaking bad news to a family. [...]

By: Holding a Death in Your Hands: What Autopsy Reports Tell Us about How Someone Lived | Reporting on Health

Tue, 26 Apr 2011 13:10:11 +0000

By: Rucha

Rucha — Sat, 04 Sep 2010 17:04:16 +0000

Thanks a lot, Doc Gurley.
Now you can add my name to the very long list of medical students whose lives were changed by Dr. Judah Folkman’s advice.

By: Jill

Jill — Thu, 13 Aug 2009 17:51:04 +0000

When my mother died, we had one doctor who clearly knew how to give bad news, and one who either didn’t know or didn’t care. Thank goodness for the one who did, and for the nurse who saw us through the end.

By: elena

elena — Thu, 21 May 2009 09:33:52 +0000

Funny I am just doing a uni paper in ICU nursing and todays subject was end-of-life care, including breaking bad news. I do not think anybody has ever managed to put it that clearly and beautifully how to approach this difficult subject with families. Thank you for the wonderful insight

By: medaholic

medaholic — Tue, 12 May 2009 19:26:36 +0000

And now, as a medical student, I too have been influenced by Dr. Judah Folkman.

By: Grand Rounds 5:33 | Nursing Handover

Grand Rounds 5:33 | Nursing Handover — Tue, 05 May 2009 15:54:20 +0000

[...] Doc Gurley remembers an influential mentor in “How to Break Bad News”. [...]

By: Eniola Cadmus

Eniola Cadmus — Sun, 18 Jan 2009 13:53:16 +0000

Hi!
I am a senior resident in Community Medicine in Nigeria and i came across your message while looking up materials for my Part 2 proposals.
Thank you for the hindsight into the proper way to break bad news.
Incidentally in the University College Hospital,Ibadan ,Nigeria where i work most times the task is left to the nurses and we try to justify this decision with thte fact that the nurse has probably spent more time with the patient and family.
I am however of the opinion that it shold be the doctors duty to do the job so thanks for a research idea !
Finally i am sorry about the loss of your mentor(see i am learning already)

By: interesting blogs to read | Oz E Medicine - emergency medicine in Australia

interesting blogs to read | Oz E Medicine - emergency medicine in Australia — Thu, 18 Dec 2008 23:08:39 +0000

[...] How to break bad news [...]

By: traumatized

traumatized — Thu, 18 Dec 2008 18:43:15 +0000

Doc Gurley,

It is you who have chosen to so carefully, eloquently, and compassionately tell this story that I thank. The qualities of Doctor Folkman you relate can be so much more broadly applied to other situations between medical personnel and the humans beings they interact with.
I only wish the surgeons and PA who deceived me into agreeing to what I didn’t understand was exaggerated surgical overtreatment for a “probable” cancer would read your message and be touched by it. They would have the opportunity to realize the life-long consequences of inhumane attitudes towards patients on the medical conveyor belt and to learn how transform themselves into humanists.
So much anguish can be so easily averted…

Thank-you.