I would like to express my appreciation of the article, “Needs of Family Members of Patients With Severe Traumatic Brain Injury” (August 2003:63–72). As a surgical resident who has recently looked after a brain-injured patient (with a very large family, some under the influence of drugs and/or alcohol), I found the article informative, interesting, and useful. We too sought to provide consistent, timely, and honest information, and to patiently repeat this information to all the family members. I think this helped, although they were a little confused when the patient made a better recovery than any of us expected. Then I was able to remind them of the many times I had added, “We don’t really know, anything could happen.”

I was also impressed by the way the qualitative research was analyzed in the article. I am in the process of analyzing my first qualitative research for part of my...

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