Informing a relative of a death by telephone
PLAB 2 & PRES 3 · acute medicine / communication · hard · 10 minutes
Candidate brief
You are an FY2 doctor on an acute medical ward. Mr Albert Greenwood, 78, was admitted three days ago with community-acquired pneumonia and was improving — yesterday evening he was sitting up, eating, and chatting with his daughter. At 05:40 this morning he was found unresponsive in bed. The nurse called the emergency team immediately; his heart had stopped. Resuscitation was attempted for 25 minutes but was unsuccessful, and he was pronounced dead at 06:10. The cause of the sudden deterioration is not yet certain. His daughter, Mrs Karen Lowe, is his next of kin and is expecting to visit at 09:00. The consultant has asked you to telephone her now. Please make the telephone call to inform Mrs Lowe of her father's death.
What examiners look for
On the telephone, identity and setting come before content. Confirm who you are speaking to, confirm they are not driving, and get them sitting down. A death sentence delivered to someone at a steering wheel is a second emergency waiting to happen. Say "died". Telephone removes every visual cue that rescues vague language in person: "he's gone" can genuinely be heard as "transferred" or "in theatre". The plain word, delivered gently, is the kindest version — her confusion in this station is engineered to prove it. Hold the silence. The pause after the news feels three times longer on a phone and every instinct screams to fill it. Don't. Her next sentence tells you what she needs; anything you say before it is noise over grief. Disbelief is not a cue to repeat the news louder. She saw him laughing twelve hours ago; validate the impossibility of it, then hold the fact steady and kindly, once more, without irritation or over-explaining. Guilt needs facts, handled delicately. Her fear is that he died alone and calling out. The honest, comforting truth available here is that he was found on a routine round, the alarm was raised immediately, and he would not have been conscious. Do not manufacture a witnessed, peaceful death you did not see — and do not speculate about whether earlier discovery would have changed anything. The coroner is not a complication to apologise for; it is the honest consequence of an unexplained death. Name it early, explain it is a legal step that protects families as much as anyone, be precise about the one place her choice does not govern (a coroner's post-mortem), and give her the bereavement office as the human guide for paperwork. End the call like a safety net: someone with her, no driving, a number written down, a named place to come to and a person expecting her. She will remember almost nothing of the middle of this call; make sure the ending is the part she cannot get wrong.
Guideline references
Practise this station
Role-play it with an AI patient and get feedback against the full marking scheme. Create a free account — 3 stations per month free.