Talking to patients about cancer

Talking to patients about cancer No excuse nowfor not doing it __ An extraordinary thing about the medical profession is that it managed to avoid telling the truth to patients for so many cen- turies.In 1672 the French physician Samuel de Sorbiere con- sidered the idea but thought that it might seriously jeopardise medical practice and concluded that it would not catch on.'This approach-recognising the need to act but finding excuses not to-is still in evidence today, even though there has been a considerable change over the past 35 years.Two papers in this week's journal remind us that what is comfortable for clinicians is not necessarily what patients want.