Common challenges clinicians face when breaking bad news are:
Delivering bad news is very stressful for clinicians with the after effects lasting for hours to days ( Ptacek 2001).
Most clinicians receive very little formal training in delivering bad news. Thus clinicians are understandably very reluctant to deliver bad news.
So they often deliver bad news speedily, focus only on the cognitive aspects of the news and use medical jargon. Clinicians rarely look for, hear or respond to the patients and families emotional response to bad news and are ill equipped to offer empathy and support.
