Article Explores How Doctors Deliver Bad News to Patients, Benefits of Empathy Training

​Is there an art to breaking bad news to patients? A May 18, 2015, Wall Street Journal article explores how physicians deliver bad news to patients and what the profession is doing to bring more empathy into the process. According to the article, research into the effectiveness of training doctors in how to deliver bad news has turned up mixed results, but many agree that failing to balance out the physiological treatment of disease with the psychosocial side of medicine puts a physician at risk of alienating patients and their families. One physician cited in the article teaches medical students how to deliver bad news.