Cardiology in the young
August 12, 2026 · via Europe PMC
The spaces in between: silence as a witness to accompaniment in congenital heart disease.
McMahon CJ.
AI summary — for doctors, generated from the abstract only
This reflective perspective piece explores the role of silence as a meaningful element of care for families and clinicians navigating congenital heart disease, discussing how pauses in clinical activity can carry emotional significance across a patient's lifetime of care; it is not a research study with clinical findings.
What was studied
A reflective/perspective essay exploring the role of silence, listening, and presence in the care of children and families living with congenital heart disease (CHD) and the clinicians who care for them, drawing on experiences across the stages of fetal diagnosis, infancy, childhood, adolescence, transition to adult care, and survivorship; this is not a primary research study with original data.
Key findings
- This is a reflective/perspective essay, not an empirical research study; no quantitative findings are reported.
- The piece discusses how silences in clinical encounters can represent uncertainty, adaptation, fear, relief, or continuity, depending on context.
- The authors note that some silences may wound while others sustain, and that individuals may be shaped by these experiences in ways rarely acknowledged within clinical medicine.
Clinical relevance
This perspective may encourage clinicians caring for congenital heart disease patients and families to be more attentive to the emotional significance of pauses and silence in clinical encounters, though it offers reflection rather than evidence-based clinical guidance or interventions.
Who should care
Limitations
This is a reflective/perspective essay rather than an empirical study; it contains no data, methodology, or measurable outcomes to assess.
This essay reflects on how moments of silence during the long journey of congenital heart disease care can carry deep emotional meaning for patients, families, and clinicians alike.
This is an AI-generated summary of the published abstract, not a clinical recommendation. It may not reflect the full text or subsequent updates — verify against the original source before acting on it.
Abstract
Paediatric cardiology is often experienced as a noisy environment. Outpatient clinics, echocardiography laboratories, ICUs, catheterisation suites, and operating theatres are filled with alarms, conversations, machines, movement, and continual clinical activity. Beneath this activity, however, another dimension of CHD care exists: silence. These pauses are not simply absences within clinical work, but moments through which patients, families, nurses, physiologists, and clinicians encounter uncertainty, adaptation, fear, relief, and continuity across time. Across fetal diagnosis, infancy, childhood, adolescence, transition to adult services, and survivorship, silence emerges repeatedly within care. Some silences wound. Others sustain. At times, they create space for reflection and presence; at others, they may leave questions unspoken or emotions unsupported. Over years of care, individuals may be shaped by these experiences in ways rarely acknowledged within clinical medicine. This reflective perspective explores the role of silence, listening, and presence across the longitudinal experience of children and families living with CHD and those who care for them.
DOI
10.1017/s1047951126123610
PMID
42583833
Research metadata (titles, abstracts, authors, publication dates) is sourced from Europe PMC, which aggregates content from PubMed/MEDLINE, PubMed Central, and other providers under the U.S. National Library of Medicine (NLM/NCBI). NLM does not claim copyright on abstracts; the original journal publishers or authors may hold rights to the full articles. AI-generated summaries are derived only from the abstract, never the full text, and are always labeled as AI-generated.
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