Episode 72. Breaking Bad News and Admitting Error with Dr Bill Shearer and Dr Alan Saunder

Delivering hard news to a patient or their relatives and admitting error can be one of the most difficult duties encountered by a doctor.  Significant effort is now spent in teaching young training doctors techniques and strategies to avoid miscommunication and uncertainty in undertaking this complicated task whilst also remaining emotionally engaged and empathetic to their situation.

Rabow and McPhee have written eloquently on the subject of breaking difficult or bad news and have devised a mnemonic using the letters ABCDE as an excellent guide to this subject.

Accepting responsibility and apologising genuinely to a patient and their relatives for an error incurred during care requires courage and honesty and both Rabow and McPhee as well as the Harvard School of Public Health have written informatively on this subject.

In this episode we are joined by Dr Alan Saunder, Program Director of Surgery at Monash Health and both vascular and transplant surgeon with Dr Bill Shearer Consultant Anaesthetist and Executive Director of Quality Safety and Transformation at the Northern Hospital. We discuss these very important subjects with the honesty and wisdom of many years of advanced clinical practice.  I believe you will find this conversation both helpful and engaging.

Useful references include:

-  www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov - Beyond Breaking Bad News: How to help patient who suffer

-  www.aafp.org - Breaking Bad News – American Family Physician, G. VandeKieft.2001

-  Harvard School of Public Health – www.hsph.harvard.edu

-  Mistakes Were Made (But Not by Me) by Carol Tavris and Elliot Aronson, (Chapter 8)

To be a guest on the show or provide some feedback, I’d love to hear from you: manager@gihealth.com.au

Dr Luke Crantock MBBS, FRACP, is a gastroenterologist in practice for over 25 years. He is the founder of The Centre for GI Health, based in Melbourne Australia and is passionate about educating General Practitioners and patients on disease prevention and how to manage and improve their digestive health.