Improving communication skills
Barriers to communication come from both sides. Patients
are afraid to ask questions, thus nourishing unrealistic
expectations, overestimating their chances of
survival, and sometimes ending up with aggressive endof-life
care such as cardiopulmonary reanimation. Conversely,
physicians tend to be overly optimistic about
how much time a patient really has, which may be the
result of an unconscious coping mechanism to prevent
cynicism or nihilism.