Abstract
Personal reports of receiving bad news provide data that describes patients’ comprehension, reflections, experienced emotions, and an interpretative commentary with the wisdom of hindsight. Analysis of autobiographical accounts of “hearing bad news” enables the identification of patterns of how patients found out diagnoses, buffering techniques used, and styles of receiving the news. I describe how patients grapple with the news, their somatic responses to hearing, and how they struggle and strive to accept what they are hearing. I discuss metaphors used within the languages of hearing bad news. Finally, I discuss implications for a change of focus in the breaking bad news research agenda, that is, from the physician’s “performance” to a patient-focused agenda.
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Notes
Biographical and autobiographical accounts present a different level of “truth” than fictive accounts, such as Wit (Margaret Edson, 1995, New York, Farber) or TV’s ER and Chicago Hope.
C. Reeve, Still Me (New York: Ballantine, 1998).
M.W. Lear, Heartsounds (New York: Simon and Schuster, 1980).
R.F. Murphy, The Body Silent (New York: W.W. Norton, 1987/1990).
L. Genova, Still Alice (New York: Simon and Schuster, 2007).
D.F. McGowin, Living in the Labyrinth: A Personal Journey Through the Maze of Alzheimer’s (NY, New York: Delacorte 1993), 3-22.
B. Rollin, First, You Cry (Bergenfield, New Jersey: Signet Books, 1976).
P. van Tighem, The Bear’s Embrace:A True Story of Surviving a Grizzly Bear Attack (Vancouver, British Columbia, Canada: Greystone Books, 2000). 176-177.
R. Stinson and P. Stinson, The Long Dying of Baby Andrew (Toronto, Ontario, Canada: Little, Brown and Company, 1979/1983).
R.M. Cohen, Blindsided: Lifting Above Illness (New York: Harper Collins, 2004).
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Rollin, 34-36.
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Lear, 334.
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W. Styron, Darkness Visible: A Memoir of Madness (New York: Random House, 1990), 15.
S. Baier and M.Z. Shomaker, Bed Number Ten (Boca Raton, Florida: CRC Press, 1985/1986), 13.
S. Brown and S. Carchidi, Miracle in the Making: The Adam Taliaferro Story (Chicago: Triumph Books, 2001), 13-14.
Rollin, 60-161.
W.H. Jones and M. Buttery, “Sudden Death: Survivors’ Perceptions of Their Emergency Department Experience,” Journal of Emergency Nursing 7 (1981): 14-7.
B. Glaser and A. Strauss, Awareness of Dying (Chicago: Aldine, 1965).
D.W. Maynard, “On ‘Realization’ in Everyday Life: The Forecasting of Bad News as a Social Relation,” American Sociological Review 61 (1996): 109-31.
Brown and Carchidi, 11.
M.A. Chassé, “The Experiences of Women Having a Hysterectomy,” in The Illness Experience: Dimensions of Suffering, ed. J.M. Morse and J.L. Johnson (Newbury Park, California: Sage, 1991), 89-139.
J.F. Callahan, Don't Worry, He Won't Get Far On Foot (New York: William Morrow and Company, 1998), 55-56.
Cohen, 17-18.
S. LeBlanc, “Sophie LeBlanc,” in An Unexpected Journey: Women's Voices of Hope After Breast Cancer. Ed. by A. Galambos (USA: Gynergy Books, 1998), 80-100.
van Tighem, 176-177.
N. Huggett, “Life With Jessie,” in The Morningside Years. Ed. by P. Gzowski (Toronto, Ontario, Canada: McClelland and Stewart, 1997), 178-181.
Ibid, 181.
Van Tighem, 180.
Murphy, 24.
Stinson, 26.
Lear, 272.
M. Woodman. Bone: Dying Into Life (Toronto, Ontario, Canada: Penguin Books, 2000), 4.
L. Dackman, Up Front: Sex and the Post-Mastectomy Woman (New York: Viking,1990), 13.
Brown and Carchidi, 7.
Cook, 96-97.
Maynard, 118.
B. Creaturo, Courage: The Testimony of a Cancer Patient (New York: Pantheon Books. 1991), 7.
Reeve, 20.
Cook, 185.
J-D. Bauby, The Diving Bell and the Butterfly (New York: Knopf. 1997), 8-9.
Ibid, 11-12.
Woodmam, 1-2
Rollin, 36.
E. Potter, “Elizabeth Potter,” in An Unexpected Journey: Women's Voices of Hope After Breast Cancer. Ed. by A. Galambos (USA: Gynergy Books, 1998), 13-17.
Van Tighen, 35.
Cook, 186.
McGowin, 17.
Lear, 270.
Baier and Schomaker, 14.
Cook, 183.
McGowin, 16.
M. Dobic, My Beautiful Life (Forres, Scotland: Findhorn Press, 2000), 61.
B. Peabody, The Screaming Room: A Mother’s Journal of Her Son’s Struggle With AIDS—A True Story of Love, Dedication, and Courage (New York: Avon, 1986), 1.
Rollin, 34.
Baier and Schomaker, 15.
Ibid, 15.
van Tighem, 41.
Ibid, 41.
McGowin, 16.
Baier and Schomaker, 15.
van Tighem, 35.
Ibid, 41.
McGowin, 17.
Baier and Schomaker, 15.
Levine, 3.
Ibid, 3.
K. Conway, Ordinary Life: A Memoir of Illness (New York: W.H. Freeman, 1996), 32-35.
Dackman, 14.
Potter, 29.
C. VanBuskirk, “Carolyn VanBuskirk,” in An Unexpected Journey: Women's Voices of Hope After Breast Cancer. Ed. by A. Galambos (Charlottetown, PEI: Gynergy Books, 1998), 45-51.
Reeve, 20.
G. Radner, It’s Always Something (New York: Avon, 1989), 72-73.
Radner, 73,
Murphy, 24.
B.S. Klein, Slow Dance: A Story of Stroke, Love and Disability (Toronto, Ontario, Canada: Vintage, 1997). 92-93.
Van Tighem, 76-78.
Murphy, 24.
Baier and Shomaker, 15.
Woodman, 5.
Reeve, 20.
Giroux, 31.
Dobic, 59.
VanBuskirk, 50.
Klein, 120.
van Tighem, 31.
Callahan, 55-56.
Conway, 33.
Dobic, 61.
Klein, 125.
Baier and Shomaker, 13.
M. Korda, Man to Man: Surviving Prostate Cancer (New York: Random House, 1996), 6.
Korda, 7.
Korda, 7.
van Tighem, 36.
A. Broyard, Intoxicated by My Illness (New York: Clarkson Potter, 1992), 4.
Potter, 16.
Baier and Shomaker, 15.
Cook, 183.
Dackman, 14.
Klein, 120.
Bauby, 7-8.
Cohen, 10-13.
J.M. Morse et al., “Patterns of Suffering: Emotional Responses While Waiting for Breast Biopsy Results” (in review).
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Morse, J. Hearing Bad News. J Med Humanit 32, 187–211 (2011). https://doi.org/10.1007/s10912-011-9138-4
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s10912-011-9138-4