UPDATE - Issue 31 - Autumn 2007
Breaking bad news - patient Hugh Sharp's viewpoint
The experience of being told that I had prostate cancer has stayed with me. It is somewhat like knowing what you were doing when one heard about 9/11 or the death of President Kennedy (for us older ones).
Sitting in the NHS outpatient clinic I watched my Consultant and a colleague enter the room opposite. Two people - perhaps this is not good news, I thought. At first the Consultant said nothing. He was studying the computer screen. Then he spoke. 'The reports on your prostate indicate that we have to take some action'. My immediate words were 'Does this mean I have prostate cancer?' The Consultant replied 'Yes - but it does not mean that you will die tomorrow'. The words cancer in one sentence and die in the next did not seem to me to be appropriate. He asked if I would like my wife to be called in and I agreed. He went on to explain the Gleason scoring and told me where I was on the scale. The options of surgery, radiotherapy or brachytherapy in Leeds were explained to us. It was clear that the decision on my treatment was mine alone. He gave me a booklet with information and pointed me in the direction of the Prostate UK's website, which I found most useful.
Much more happened, of course, not directly related to breaking bad news.
Overall, I felt that my Consultant handled the situation well. I left the clinic a little battered mentally but with enough knowledge to enable me to come to a decision. I appreciated my wife being called in as she could hear the information at first hand.
Breaking bad news can of course be at two ends of a scale. When I was given the news the emphasis was on the curative nature of the treatment. Others I have known with different types of cancer have only been offered palliative care and that must be much harder news to deliver.
Prostate UK will be holding its first pilot workshop on Breaking Bad News, aimed at urologists and their urological nurses on 28 February 2008.