‘Are you saying I’m dying?’ Training doctors to speak frankly about death
NASHVILLE, Tenn. — The doctor pulls up a chair next to his patient, a 74-year-old woman with lung cancer. He tells her she doesn’t need more chemotherapy. Her eyes perk up; has she beaten her cancer? As it turns out, no. Her cancer has metastasized. She only has six months to live, at most. But her doctor is unable to find the right words.
“My cancer’s not gone? I thought it was getting better,” the patient says, bewildered.
“That’s the tough part …” the doctor replies.
“So, no further treatment?”
“I think we need to focus on quality [of life] over quantity.”
“Are you saying I’m dying?”
From the other side of a two-way mirror, Anna-Gene O’Neal listens closely. She’s set up this simulation — the prognosis is part of a script; the patient is an actor; the physician is being recorded — to improve the way he broaches the topic of death with real patients. O’Neal hears the mock patient all but pleading with the doctor to give her a direct answer. He struggles to do so. After a few minutes,
