How might you react if you, as an Oncologist, were given a diagnosis of cancer?
"My reaction will change with each patient to whom I give similar news. Identifying with my patients empathetically makes each of their reactions seem right each time."
"I am well aware of the phases patients experience, especially given the possibility of mortality. I know I have no special protection from the denial, anger, bargaining and, finally, acceptance that I've seen many times. I just hope my insight into these phases would help me navigate them more quickly and appropriately without unnecessarily distressing my loved ones."
You deal with people who get life-threatening diagnoses all the time. This question isn't designed to see if you would react according to some appropriate standard, because there is no quintessentially appropriate way to react to this. You know this from your own patients. Therefore, this question is really designed just to see how you react to provocative and very personal scenarios. You really can answer it any way you want, because there is no perfect answer, and there are as many answers as there are people. However, you should include in it your empathy with others who have to deal with terrible diagnoses.
"Frankly, I don't know how I would react. I know from my own patients that it's such a critical abstraction that it's impossible to answer unless I were to personally identify with it actually happening."