VCU Medical School: How to Be Good at Giving Bad News

Delivering bad news is one of the most daunting tasks faced by physicians. Bad news is any news that drastically and negatively alters the patient's view of her or his future.

Enter Patti D'Beck. "You can't make it (the news) better but when it's not done right, you can make it a lot worse." Those words echo in Patti's mind when she coaches nurses and doctors on how deliver bad news.

As a trained clinical patient at the VCU School of Medicine, she also teaches doctors and nurses how to communicate with rapport-building body language and tone of voice when doing routine physical exams and counseling patients.

At the end of her coaching sessions Patti always leave them with this, "Whether you're giving a lecture on stage to hundreds of people or giving bad news to a patient, once you know the basic skills, it's all about the knowing your audience and communicating in the most compassionate way."