When medical errors lead to serious injuries, patients and families may feel better when doctors take the time to listen to their feelings about the mistake and explain what can be done to prevent it from happening again, a small study suggests.

The research team interviewed 27 patients, 3 family members and 10 staff members at three U.S. hospitals that have established programs to communicate with patients about medical errors and efforts to improve safety – and offer compensation when substandard care causes harm. In every case, patients had either accepted a malpractice settlement or been injured too long ago to file a lawsuit.

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“When things go wrong in the hospital, doctors tend to be focused on doing what they do best: conveying medical information and treating the patient,” said senior study author Michelle Mello, a law professor at Stanford University in California.

“They may not realize that what many patients and families need is for them to stop talking and listen attentively to what families have to say about how the adverse event affected them, without redirecting the conversation to clinical issues,” Mello said by email.

Patients and families had some surprising advice for doctors and hospitals, Mello said.

“Things like, don’t send a social worker to disclose the adverse event, because families see her coming and think their loved one has died,” Mello said. “Or, even if our doctor isn’t ‘a people person’ and is terrible at breaking bad news, we want to talk to him, because he’s the one accountable for what happened.”