Has anyone considered how the Kennedy clan feels?

If I were a pundit, I might call it a media frenzy. If I were an editor, I might call it a unique opportunity to educate the American public. If I were a politician or an entertainer, I might call it the cost of doing business as a public figure.

But I am none of these things. I am a physician, a husband, a father, a son and a brother, and a teacher. And as such, I can't help but squirm at all the news about Sen. Ted Kennedy's brain tumor.

Nothing is more cruel than brutal honesty to a person whose life is threatened by illness. When medical students are learning to break bad news, we teach them first to find out what the patient is ready to hear. The mantra goes: Find out what he knows, find out what he wants to know, and only then break the news.

Maybe fire a warning shot first, just to give him a chance to brace himself. And then be prepared for a reaction, any reaction. Pay attention, listen, be quiet, and whatever you do, don't you dare walk away, no matter how devastating it is to stay.

Eric Cassell, a wise internist at Cornell, says that information must serve three purposes: to reduce uncertainty, to provide a basis for action, and to give meaning. Don't open your mouth until you know what you're trying to say. I teach my students that, too.

I'm not sure where Kennedy fits in all this. His tumor is certainly in the news. I don't think anyone asked what he was ready to hear or read before ubiquitous headlines declared that he had less than a year to live, or that he'd never again talk or understand a word if he had surgery to remove it — the one desperate act that could conceivably save his life.

Sure, he probably isn't spending much time reading papers or watching TV these days, but what of his family? Did anybody ask them?

Some good might come of this. Somebody, maybe even the U.S. Congress, might put a pile of money into brain-tumor research. People who watch Sanjay Gupta on CNN might learn more about seizures and brain tumors, and maybe even about the brain, itself. Good news for neurologists like me.

And even if the worried start beating down their doctors' doors, demanding scans for the flimsiest reasons, there's always the upside that MRI sales and jobs might therefore go through the roof. If you look hard enough, there's always an upside.

Still, I can't help but wonder how Kennedy and his family feel. I suppose it could be that their lives have been public so long, have been suffused with tragedy so many times, that this is just another in a long series of terrible events.

Maybe they understand their unique position in American public life and accept the obligations and prerogatives of the journalism upon which we depend to define and preserve our identity and freedom as a society. Maybe they're used to it.

But I'm not. No matter how well I understand every single issue involved, I just can't help thinking there's something indecent about this. I can't help thinking we should just shut up and leave them alone.