Synopsis
Explain a diagnosis or unresolved clinical problem accurately, communicate the degree and consequence of uncertainty, and support a patient to compare reasonable treatment choices.
- Ask what the patient already understands, what they want to know and which outcome or concern matters most before delivering a prepared explanation.
- Give information in short chunks: name the problem, connect it to the person's symptoms or findings, pause, and invite correction or questions.
- Calibrate language to evidence by distinguishing confirmed diagnosis, most likely explanation, important alternative and residual uncertainty.
Reasoning priorities
Anchor information to the patient's knowledge and check its meaning as the explanation develops.
Ask what is understood, tell one relevant chunk, then ask for reaction or restatement; correction is information about communication, not patient failure.
Worked reasoning
A fictional case supplies an incidental small lung nodule on imaging, no diagnosis yet, a planned interval scan, low immediate clinical concern and a patient who believes the word nodule means cancer.
- Ask what the patient understood from the report and acknowledge the fear attached to the word before adding technical information.
- Explain that a nodule describes a small imaging finding with several possible causes, that the current scan does not establish cancer, and that its features support planned surveillance rather than a definitive label.
- Describe why interval imaging is proposed, what change would prompt further assessment and the limits of what a single scan can determine; avoid invented numerical risk.
- Explore how waiting affects the patient and agree practical support, result communication, timing and symptom-based reasons to seek earlier review.
- Verify with teach-back that the patient distinguishes finding from diagnosis and knows the plan; document questions and seek feedback on whether reassurance remained evidence-based.