Bad news, over and over again

The common thread running through our professional world is disease, and many of our conversations inevitably converge on "bad news." They may begin with an initial diagnosis, but those diseases can become catastrophic or just sputter along in a continuous decline until death. We doctors must be there every step of the way. Bad news thus occurs not just once but over and over again.

Pauline W. Chen, Final Exam: A Surgeon's Reflections on Mortality  (New York: Alfred A. Knopf, 2007), ch.8