How do you break bad news to a patient?

How a doctor or medical student breaks bad news to a patient or relatives (structure, first steps, wording).

Axis: follow a fixed structure step by step … adapt freely to the patient in front of you

Answers by date: 1 record in 1 source, newest first; the answers above are the current ones. One answer from each speaker here, so no change can be shown.

date	who	answer	source
2018-02-24	Ali	Ali says the first step in breaking bad news is always to establish the patient's starting point, what they have been told, so that a doctor new to the patient never discusses the next step of a cancer treatment with someone who was never told they had cancer.	Breaking Bad News / Death & Dying - Cambridge medical student VLOG #25 00:01:17