386 Gary E. Myers give patients their best prognoses (if patients want to hear it), to inform them about the probable outcomes of available treatments, and to remain emotionally present with them while they react to this information. Some readers may be concerned that the complexity of the foregoing discussion may make its findings impractical for use in clinical practice. The complexity, however, simply provides conceptual support for the idea that there is a better way to sustain patients’ hope at the end of life than reframing it as a treatable illness and points the way to an alternative approach. Physicians, however, need not consider the complexity of this discussion in order to apply its insights. Simply put, the discussion provides a rationale for providing physicians with training that can help them to resist the tendency to offer hope to terminally ill patients by reframing their dying as a treatable illness.
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