Physicians, nurses, psychologists, social workers, and chaplains all have a role in helping patients who suffer and can support each other in providing care to the patient. Throughout the process of dealing with suffering, the core task of the clinician must be to understand the patient's response to the bad news and the meaning ascribed to it. This understanding can only come from a detailed and tolerant exploration of the patient's unique experience of suffering. The clinician's commitment to non-abandonment and to listening openly to the patient is necessary to being able to accompany the patient through the profound challenges of bad news, especially at the end of life. Indeed, it is the trust possible in the patient clinician relationship that allows clinicians to discover what may be of service to the patient.
Clinicians can help simply by listening with compassion.
Secondly, clinicians can provide emotional reflection and validation. Importantly, clinicians also may offer a number of specific responses to patients to help ameliorate suffering. Strength can help hold together the parts of a person threatened with dissolution by bad news. The challenge of bad news or illness may be met with personal growth by the patient. The integrity of the whole person may be maintained if the person can compensate for what is lost.