Main present positions
- - Head of the Psychiatric Liaison Service, Lausanne, University Hospital, Switzerland
- - Full Professor at The Faculty of Biology and Medicine, University of Lausanne, Switzerland
- - Member of the Scientific Committee of the Swiss Cancer League
Bio-sketch
Born the 10th of March 1959, Friedrich Stiefel graduated from medical school of the University of Zurich, Switzerland. He worked as a resident and fellow in Pathology, Internal Medicine, Oncology / Palliative Care and Psychiatry. He also spent two research fellowships, one in the Psychiatry Service of Memorial Sloan-Kettering Cancer Center, New York (1987-1989), and one in Palliative Medicine at the Edmonton General Hospital in Canada (1991).
He was Assistant Editor (1993-2000) and Associate Editor (2001-2007) of the Journal of Supportive Care in Cancer, Member of the Research Steering Committee of the European Association for Palliative Care (1998-2002), President of the Swiss Society of Palliative Care (1999-2005) and Vice-President of the Swiss Cancer League (2004-2007).
His clinical and research experience include case complexity of the medically ill, Communication Skills Training in Oncology and psychotherapy in patients with advanced disease.
He is the author of about 100 scientific articles in peer reviewed indexed journals, of over 30 chapters and has edited 5 books, among them “Communication in Cancer Care”, which was published by Springer in 2006.
Lausanne, January 2014
Communication and Communication Skills in Palliative Care
Abstract
The specific challenges with regard to communication for clinicians working in palliative care consist of being able (i) to create an atmosphere which allows that the subjectivity of the patient (his living experiences) can emerge, (ii) to distinguish between the patient’s expression of factual and symbolic information and between thoughts and emotions, (iii) to introduce the limits of medicine and the associated uncertainty without depriving hope and (iv) to put into words what can be observed in the scenic representation of the interaction between the patient, his significant others and the caregivers (1,2).
Due to the emotional charge put on clinicians working with dying patients and the fact that end of life is at the crossroad of various individual and collective representations and social discourses, communication skills training (CST) of palliative care physicians should not only focus on traditional topics, such as how to provide information and empathy and to enhance relationship building, but also address clinicians’ defense mechanisms, counter-transferential reactions, fears and representation of death, as well as the societal constructions of the body and disease and the dominant discourses concerning disease and dying (3-6).
- 1) Stiefel F, Krenz S. Support of the Dying Patient. In: Psycho-Oncology (Edited by TN Wise, M Biondi, A Costantini). Washington DC, London England: American Psychiatric Publishing 2013; Chapter 11, pp 289-314.
- 2) Communication in Cancer Care. Recent Results in Cancer Research (Edited by F. Stiefel). Berlin: Springer Verlag 2006.
- 3) Bernard M, de Roten Y, Despland JN, Stiefel F. Communication skills training and clinicians’ defenses in oncology: an exploratory, controlled study. Psycho-Oncology 2010; 19: 209-215.
- 4) Stiefel F, Krenz S. Psychological Challenges for the Oncology Clinician Who Has to Break Bad News. In: New Challenges in Communication with Cancer Patients (Springer Verlag). A. Surbone et al. (eds) 2012; pp 51-62.
- 5) Stiefel F. Support of the supporters. Supportive Care in Cancer 2008; 16:123–126.
- 6) Stiefel F, Guex P. Palliative and supportive care: At the frontier of medical omnipotence. Annals of Oncology 1996; 7:135-138.
