No abstract

As the need to meticulously simplify healthcare communication becomes a widely recognized epidemic there has been little attempt to describe or reduce the literacy demand of health care dialogue. Healthcare exchanges between patient and provider serve as the cornerstone for successful completion of treatment and with an exceedingly diverse population, providers and patients face numerous challenges. With health literacy's widely complicated nature, the continued low health literacy of patients creates dilemmas that can highlight the providers' pedagogical deficiencies. Palliative illness more often than not demonstrates the deep sensitivities of planning for end of life care and the rhetoric that providers need to be able to handle in their everyday care. This article attempts to review some of the central ethics of communication by encompassing both the provider's due diligence and the patient's understanding.Good news is a rare commodity in present-day medicine, which makes bad news all the more inevitable. How bad news is delivered can considerably alter a patient and their family's hopes or fears. Sensitive information such as a patient's life jeopardizing illness requires careful communication. There is always a risk, if the manner of communication is less than clear and if patient concordance is not checked regularly during the conversation, a false sense of hope might be mistakenly conveyed, especially in cases where there isn't any hope.