HELPING FUTURE DOCTORS LEARN HOW TO BREAK BAD-NEWS

The importance of future doctors' personal development is now widely acknowledged. In order to learn how to break bad news students need to develop appropriate attitudes as well as knowledge and skills. The best context for such learning is medicine's critical but supportive collegiality. But broad objectives (preparing, addressing, contextualizing and applying) can be identified for different stages of education from the first pre-clinical to the first pre-registration year. Examples are given of teaching methods, appropriate to each of these stages, which the writer has found helpful.