You're on to something, but have it slightly backwards.

"First, do no harm."

Physicians, at least in Western medicine, are bound to the principle of non-maleficence. Their obligation is to take the approach (by action or inaction) that does the least harm to most people, NOT what helps the most people. This is an important, but subtle distinction.

This principle prevents, e.g. administration of a treatment that would cure 51 of 100 patients of a chronic but not debilitating condition while killing the other 49.

It's hard to imagine the quantifiable positive ill of telling someone something in person that they'd rather receive in email. But the underlying principle here is not in helping as many as possible but, overall, hurting as few.

There is great irony in your comment, given the topic. You are literally advocating for an approach based on not actually knowing the patient and going off of generalities. You aren't wrong, but it is...weird.

I think it's realistic - the physician doesn't know you as a person. They care about you as another human being but not on a personal level, and don't have the time or the emotional energy to get to know you. Really, I'm just advocating for a return to the conventional approach which the article is saying they should have followed. I'd say the "wheel a box into a room to tell people that someone is dead" approach is a bad one.

I get it - but I still believe that mimicry of concern is less desirable than actually HAVING concern. I'd much rather get bad news from someone remote that has concern than from someone in-person that doesn't. And I certainly wouldn't want to have to wait for an in-person meeting with a diagnosis hanging over my head if I can find out sooner.

Yes, but sometimes things are more complex. I know physicians that were assaulted with a knife in their workplaces. A bagcase raised in the last second stopped the hit, aimed towards her heart. Some people could have solid reasons for acting like that.

I'm confused as to your argument. Are you saying that because someone was attacked that means they SHOULD be emailing this news? I'd bet that most people , being social animals, would rather be told in person, face to face. One outlier doesn't change standard operating procedure.

I am saying that the physician could have logical reasons also to act like that, and that we could be missing some context.

After begin attacked by an enraged patient (or their relatives) I can understand how the physician could develop a phobia to put him/herself in a similar situation again. Just being forced to return to the same workplace day after day can be emotionally draining and very difficult for the physician.

The biggest problem of using e-mail in this case is keeping the privacy of the patient.

You're building a narrative that doesn't exist in the article - there was no mention of a previous violent incident leading to this.

This was just them pulling a stupid, and the hospital apologizing for it.

Not only is email not able to be kept private, you also can't guarantee the patient is going to get it in any sort of timely manner, or in fact, at all. It's also ensuring that no follow up questions can be asked in a timely manner.