Final Report > Chapter 17: Parents' Experiences > Parents' experiences: the cardiologists
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Parents' experiences: the cardiologists
6 We heard from the parents about their initial meetings with the cardiologists. Some recall being told that they had a choice of where to take their child for surgery [4] while others did not. [5] The kind of information given by the cardiologist to parents may sometimes have been unduly optimistic. We heard Dr Joffe, consultant paediatric cardiologist, for example, express the view that it was his duty to try to maintain hope. [6] Such an approach was not unusual for the time. But, by being not wholly truthful, it ran the risk of putting parents in a false position and of sowing the seeds of distrust later on. In particular, such an approach added to the distress of parents if, subsequently, a more pessimistic assessment was made by the surgical team, due to the passage of time or because more information was available. Equally, it made the task more difficult for the surgeon who was put in such a position and potentially damaged relations between the parents and the surgeon. [7]
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Footnotes
[4] WIT 0238 0003 Caroline Jones, mother of Matthew
[5] WIT 0302 0004 Samantha Harris, mother of Kimberley