[The interview with the relatives of the neurosurgical patient]

Information of diagnosis, therapeutic managements and inabilities are a very difficult task for neurosurgeons and very important for relatives. The interview is the best instrument that the neurosurgeon has to inform integrally; but many young physicians are not well prepared to deal with medical information and the educational work to achieve it still is insufficient.

To provide some general, organized and practical experiences on how to develop the interview with the relatives of the neurosurgical patient.

The importance of the interview demands of: a) knowledge of the patient's data, b) reaching a specific diagnosis and appropriate therapy, c) accurate selection of the participants in the interview and d) specify when and where we will met the relatives. Most families prefer a physician that maintains an attitude of trust and sincerity and expresses clearly and slowly his thought. The explanations should be direct and simple. Repeated interviews can be concerted and we will perform a similar interview in emergent cases.

The interview should be carried out as soon as possible and as soon as results of the medical investigations were available. The pessimism should be avoided and support will be given, without losing the contact with the reality. Information, which is sacrificed frequently in the art of the Medicine to give more importance to the science, indeed germinates much of the criticism to neurosurgeons and neurosurgical centers in the last two or three decades. We should not conform with the signature of an elementary and insufficient informed consent.