Informing the Patient of a Terminal Disease

Something about an unpleasant subject today- being told by the doctor when one is to die after a doctor has disclosed a terminal illness. Having lost many family members to terminal cancer the short news article about the subject I saw caught my eye the other day.
I thought you might also be curious about this, so here is what I read. While most cancer doctors are straight forward in telling their patients if their illnesses are life ending, it seems few are willing to say how long they are likely to live (I remember asking directly about my mom, dad and brother and the physician giving a quick, and as it turned out, accurate, diagnosis as to when the cancer would end each of their lives).
A survey of 12000 cancer doctors from the United States essentially asked each how they communicate with patients when death was expected within 6 to 12 months. 559 doctors who responded to the survey and here are some of the revelations.
1) 98% of the respondents said they tell their terminally ill patients that their cancers will eventually cause their deaths, but only 5% reported that they "always" give the patients an estimate of time left to live.
2) 75% of those same doctors said they themselves would want an estimate of time left if they had terminal cancer.
3) 27% of the cancer doctors said they had been taught in medical school how to discuss prognosis (well, aren't doctors notoriously bad in personal relations?) with their patients.
4) 80% had no training or said training they did have was inadequate. What this means is that when a family member contracts a terminal disease, the doctor treating is liable to not know how to relate the personal side or is unwilling to do so ( afraid of being wrong in reference to the time frame given).
This confirms my own experience in dealing with physicians. It is necessary to be blunt, almost clinical with them if one is to extract the best information about this terrible subject. A patient and family members are helped greatly when a realistic "guess" about the duration of the disease is given. But it seems now that the patient must pull that from the doctor, if he or she is to get it.