Who wants to hear bad medical news? Nobody.

Not knowing that death is expected within a specific time frame, though, exacts high costs — medical, emotional and financial — for patients and families.

A Harvard sociology professor and physician, Nicholas A. Christalis, explains.

From the “The Bad News First,” The New York Times Op-Ed (August 24, 2007):

“By not making or communicating prognoses, doctors can make the end of life more unpleasant.”

1. “Patients are given no chance to draft wills.”

2. “See loved ones.”

3. “Make peace with estranged relatives.”

4. “Discuss with their families their wishes about how to live the end of their lives.”

5. “And they are denied the chance to make decisions about what kind of medical care they want to receive.”

The writer, who also has written a book, Death Foretold: Prophecy and Prognosis in Medical Care,” says that:

“Roughly half of Americans die with inadequately treated pain.”

“Four in five die in hospitals or nursing homes instead of at home as they prefer.

“And more than half significantly burden family caregivers in the course of their final illness: the family loses its life savings, a caregiver has to quit work or a spouse falls seriously ill.”

Read his explanation of doctors’ attitudes about avoiding giving patients a prognosis.

His description will prompt any patient and family to press for answers sooner rather than as the final breaths are being drawn.

Source: The New York Times, August 24, 2007, Op-Ed, “The Bad News First,” by Nicholas A. Christakis, a physician and sociology professor at Harvard.