In a paper published last year in JAMA Surgery and the Journal of Pain and Symptom Management, Dr. Schwarze, Dr. Kruser and colleagues suggested creating narratives to illustrate surgical risks, rather than relying on statistics.
Instead of telling patients that surgery carries a 20% risk of stroke, for example, doctors should lay out the best, worst and most likely outcomes.
In the best-case scenario, a patient might spend weeks in the hospital after surgery, living the rest of her life in a nursing home. In the worst case, the same patient dies after several weeks in intensive care. In the most likely scenario, the patient survives just 2-3 months after surgery.
Dr. Schwarze said, “If someone says they can’t tolerate the best-case scenario – which involves them being in a nursing home – then maybe we shouldn’t be doing this.”