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Surgeons and patients agreed strikingly about the purposes of information and indicated that giving information is a more complex task than current recommendations imply. We suggest that expert recommendations should catch up with practice rather than the reverse. That is, if recommendations are to reflect patients' real rather than assumed needs, and be realistic about how surgeons can meet these needs, the recommendations should be informed by knowledge of how patients and surgeons already reconcile these needs in clinical practice.

Common criticisms of cancer clinicians for giving 'too little' information belie the complexity of their task in simultaneously managing information needs and hope. The 'information spectrum' could help educators and clinicians to understand this task.

These surgeons' understanding of communication is consistent with recent suggestions that communication education: (i) should place practitioners' goals at its centre, and (ii) might be enhanced by approaches that support 'mindful' practice. By contrast, surgeons' understanding diverged markedly from the current emphasis on 'communication skills'. Research that explores practitioners' perspectives might help educators to design communication curricula that engage practitioners by seeking to enhance their own ways of learning about communication.