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My father passed away just a year ago this past month. Despite it being difficult to discuss – I still think a lot about our expierences as patients (or family members of a patient) and how it ties back to providing a service… and how too often – many services are not very well thought out.

My father had just been to the doctor for a routine follow up visit for a manageable illness. He had been going to a leading medical center out of state – my parents would drive 3 hours to see the specialist, take some tests, then have to wait nearly half a day for the doctor to be able to sit and tell them about the results. While I have many thoughts on this factoid- one of the things that still astounds me to this day is the way they told him about his cancer.

A phone call out of the blue… a follow up call from a test.

Being a reasonable person, I understand we were out of state patients, and to ask us to drive 3 hours to follow up may have been a lot. But the call was placed in the middle of the day, when only my dad was home. Leaving him alone to deal with the news, leaving him alone to wonder what was going to happen.

In addition, the individual who delivered the call, did not know very much the stage of dad’s cancer. This person was reassuring and actually gave him this incredible hope about the treatments offered at the facility and that it was very curable cancer. But in actuality, they found out when they returned to the specialist was that he was indeed dying, no chance for a cure at all, just the possibility of buying time.

Top notch medical centers who are experts specific medicinal areas see patients who drive long distances all the time. They should have a procedure in place for contacting patients and delivering news. Perhaps instead of just calling at a random time- set up a time to call the patient – like an appointment via phone. Tell them that their doctor would like to speak to them about their test results and would like to schedule a time to discuss them. Suggest that if they have someone who would normally go to the doctor with them to be there at that time. This way the doctor can look at the test results and give them the proper information. Depending on the technology available from the patients end, they could share a computer screen, the doctor could go over test results, facts, and options. Perhaps the clinics could ensure that all out of state patients have some kind of means to connect with them electronically – I’m sure there’s an ap for that… (BTW, I’m sure someone reading this is going to scream HIPAA violation on something in post) but this is the truth – think about your patient.

Think about the fact that their life is about to change with the news that you are about to give them- it’s a great responsibility to deliver such news. And probably an action that could stand to have a lot of thought placed in it.

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