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. 10 Many involved in hospice work report the end of life to be an opportunity for personal growth by patients. Reviewing earlier experiences of growth in a patient's life may assist the patient in identifying the processes by which he or she best learns and develops. Research into what has been possible for others at the end of life may challenge the patient's sense of limitation.