• You are in a patient's room performing a procedure. The patient, who has a type of cancer that is always fatal, has been told of his condition. While you are there, a man visiting a patient in the next bed begins to describe the horror of his wife's last days before she died of cancer. Your patient becomes increasingly tense and finally begins to sob.What can you do to console or reassure this patient?
• How could you have helped to prevent this situation?
• Should you report this incident? To whom and why?