ArticleWorld journal of surgery2014
Tragic knowledge: truth telling and the maintenance of hope in surgery.
Article in World journal of surgery, 2014. The graph could read no effect estimate from its abstract, so it casts no vote on the map. Cited by 10 papers.
What it found
Each row is one number read from the abstract, on the scale the paper reported it, with its interval. Left of the dashed line favours the treatment, right favours the comparator. Under each row is the sentence it came from. New to these charts? A ten-minute tutorial.
The abstract states no effect estimate the extractor could read, or names no intervention and outcome on the map, so this paper lights no cell and moves no belief. It is still indexed, cited and linked below.
The trial behind it
Trials whose registry record cites this paper, or whose number appears in the abstract. A trial that started after this paper was published is citing it as background, not reporting it.
Neither the registry nor the abstract names a trial number. If this is a trial report, that itself is worth knowing.
Who cites it
10 citing papers in PubMed.
- Patients' perceptions of autonomy in palliative care: Two patient interview exemplars.Palliative care and social practice · 2026Article
- Attitude and Awareness Toward General and Professional Ethics Among Pharmacists and Pharmacy Students: A Cross-Sectional Study from Jordan.Healthcare (Basel, Switzerland) · 2025Article
- Telling the truth to patients before hip fracture surgery.BMC medical ethics · 2024Article
- Is It Worth Knowing That You Might Die Tomorrow? Revisiting the Ethics of Prognosis Disclosure.Clinics and practice · 2022Article
- An Exploratory Study on Information Manipulation by Doctors: Awareness, Actual State, and Ethical Tolerance.Clinics and practice · 2022Article
- Communication at diagnosis of venous thromboembolism: Lasting impact of verbal and nonverbal provider communication on patients.Research and practice in thrombosis and haemostasis · 2022Article
- Truth Telling in the Setting of Cultural Differences and Incurable Pediatric Illness: A Review.JAMA pediatrics · 2017Review
- Rethinking autonomy: decision making between patient and surgeon in advanced illnesses.Annals of translational medicine · 2016Review
- Withholding tragic knowledge may lead to a tragic death: a palliative care perspective.World journal of surgery · 2014Article
- Withholding tragic knowledge may lead to a tragic death: a palliative care perspective: reply.World journal of surgery · 2014Article
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Authors and funding
3 authors.
Funding
No grant is acknowledged in the PubMed record.
Abstract
Surgeons often are faced with the challenge of balancing truth telling and the maintenance of hope in the setting of a poor prognosis. This ethical dilemma is informed by conflicting appeals to principles of autonomy and nonmaleficence, where a patient's right to be told important medical information must be weighed against the potential harm that may result from the knowledge of an unfavourable diagnosis. Truth telling in surgery raises questions on the nature of truth itself, how much information ought to be shared, what information can be withheld, and how surgeons should share tragic knowledge with patients. This paper will address these questions and provide some insight on how surgeons may navigate the sharing of tragic knowledge.
Indexed as
Identifiers
24752360What OpenQuestion holds
Registered trials
Read under generation 80e0d062 · epoch 390. Bibliography from PubMed, PubMed Central and OpenAlex; grants from NIH RePORTER; trial links from ClinicalTrials.gov; estimates, votes and beliefs from the OpenQuestion graph.