I didnt really know where to post this, the idea came to me whilst watching the Good Doctor.
How do you avoid noceboing and catastrophizing patients when delivering diagnoses to patients that just sound negative and may scare the patient into thinking worst case scenario?
Just trying to understand the mental processes that go into diagnosing someone without trying to catastrophizing them at the same time because I would imagine giving a patient a scary diagnosis like a cancer or something similar type diagnosis can be rough.
This is where the specific choice of language when framing the issue matters, and establishing a good rapport/relationship with the patient can help. There’s a difference between discussing nonspecific low back pain versus a new diagnosis of cancer.
There are lots of methods used to “break bad news”, and this is what we learn to do in the course of medical training. For example, from a quick google search:
http://theoncologist.alphamedpress.org/content/5/4/302.long
https://www.mayoclinicproceedings.org/article/S0025-6196(12)61833-3/fulltext
This topic is something I too find interesting due to my own thrilling health history of MS and type 1 diabetes.
Why do doctor’s (gp and specialists alike) use the phrase “there has never been a better time to get this diagnosis”, as if the newest treatments are miles ahead of yesterday’s instead of only incrementally better and the disease still an absolute atrocity? I realize bad news is… bad, and can put the patient into an unhealthy place mentally, but aren’t sugary platitudes putting the patient in an equally unhealthy mental place albeit on the other end of the spectrum?
I have never heard any colleague use this phrase and have never said it myself. I agree that it is a poor choice.