- Physicians need to be adept at communicating bad news in its entirety to patients to enable a decision-making process about disease management.
- Empathy is key in communicating bad news. Reactive rather than parallel empathy is more effective.
- Patients benefit from pairing hope to bad news but do not prefer that the bad news is underplayed.
- Models (SPIKES and Expanded Four Habits Model) are available to help structure this challenging interaction.
Latest Updates
Health Economics: Select Concepts of the Health Production Function, Risk, and Insurance
- The select health economics concepts of the health production function, risk, and insurance are reviewed.
Health Economics: Select Concepts of the Health Production Function, Risk, and Insurance
- The select health economics concepts of the health production function, risk, and insurance are reviewed.
Health Economics: Select Concepts of the Health Production Function, Risk, and Insurance
- The select health economics concepts of the health production function, risk, and insurance are reviewed.
Pediatric Renal Replacement Therapy
- Efficiency of pediatric continuous renal replacement therapy
- Safety for methods of anticoagulation in renal replacement therapy
- Efficacy of access for renal replacement therapy
- Outcomes of renal replacement therapy in children
Surgical Management of Genitourinary Rhabdomyosarcoma
- The management of genitourinary rhabdomyosarcoma has gradually evolved from radical extirpative surgery to organ-sparing surgery with the aim of preserving organ function and improving the patient’s quality of life without compromising oncological outcomes.
- Primary resection of genitourinary rhabdomyosarcoma should not be attempted unless the tumor can be safely and completely resected in its entirety without considerable morbidity or loss of organ function.
- Symphysiotomy significantly facilitates the exposure and visibility to the prostate and posterior urethra in children with bladder or prostate rhabdomyosarcoma. Nerve-sparing technique should be the standard of care provided that local cancer control is not compromised.
- Residual masses post chemotherapy do not necessarily mean residual tumor. Maturing rhabdomyoblasts found on post-chemotherapy specimens can be managed with continued chemotherapy and observation with repeated imaging and biopsies.
- Routine retroperitoneal lymph node dissection can be avoided in children with paratesticular rhabdomyosarcoma younger than 10 years in the absence of gross lymphadenopathy on cross-sectional imaging.
