The Bearable Lightness of Uncertainty

Excerpt

In this issue of JGIM, Simpkin and Armstrong¹ share a narrative review examining the gaps in understanding best practices of communicating uncertainty with patients. Specifically, they raise two different types of uncertainty: aleatoric uncertainty, due to random variations of disease incidence or outcomes as well as potential risks and benefits to individuals, and epistemic uncertainty, attributable to application of inadequate scientific knowledge. They then describe useful current strategies to help providers navigate this challenging area of communication and delineate a robust research agenda for optimal and helpful approaches. While we agree overall with this conceptualization of the provider’s perspective of approaching uncertainty, thoughtful communication additionally requires not only a keen personal awareness but also a relational outward component with the people with whom we hope to communicate. We will expand here on both of these less heralded, and crucial, aspects of communication. …