End Of Life Issues
End of Life Issues
10-26-2012
Grief
Death unfortunately is a very big part of life. There is no one on this earth that believes they are going to live forever, nor are they naive enough to believe that their loved ones will live forever. No age can escape death, because it does not discriminate, and with death comes grief. Grief, bereavement, and mourning have distinct meanings. Bereavement is being in a state of loss, grief is the reactions one has to the loss, and mourning is the expression of grief. Whatever the cause of death the deceased loved ones will experience grief; which makes grief an all encompassing end of life issue. Grief has seven stages which include shock or disbelief, denial, bargaining, guilt, anger, …show more content…
Practitioners who work in palliative care and with hospice patients they lose patients very frequently. Whether close to these patients or not, their job requires them to put their emotions aside and care for these patients as well as view these loses as normal; the cycle of life and death. However the reality can’t be ignored that these incidents are affecting them in some way, shape, or form. For a doctor it is hard for them to not feel guilty over a patients death. This is because there are such high expectations for them to not make mistakes. Doctors are often put on a pedestal as being stoic and lack emotion, where they must be professional at all times. The truth is, however, that they are human and often times will relate with a patient on a personal level. Either because they relate to the patients ailments, or perhaps the patient reminds them of a family member. Other attributes may be that a substantial amount of time was spent with this patient. There seems to be even more problems with this area when it comes to general practice. Often times if the doctor was intensely involved with the dying patient they would make home visits. The typical hospice nurse lasts two years and then moves on to a different field and this may be due to the grief related stress which may have something to do with the fact that it seems unprofessional to express feeling of mourning. There isn’t much grief training built into nursing school, but perhaps there should be. The internet full of stories of nurses grieving, and a lot of these include hospice nurses. They are all heart felt and sincere stories, but almost all of them explain that they have been working for ‘X’ amount of years and never really allowed themselves the opportunity to grieve. As a human, a person is guaranteed to experience the death of a loved one at least one, but as a
10-26-2012
Grief
Death unfortunately is a very big part of life. There is no one on this earth that believes they are going to live forever, nor are they naive enough to believe that their loved ones will live forever. No age can escape death, because it does not discriminate, and with death comes grief. Grief, bereavement, and mourning have distinct meanings. Bereavement is being in a state of loss, grief is the reactions one has to the loss, and mourning is the expression of grief. Whatever the cause of death the deceased loved ones will experience grief; which makes grief an all encompassing end of life issue. Grief has seven stages which include shock or disbelief, denial, bargaining, guilt, anger, …show more content…
Practitioners who work in palliative care and with hospice patients they lose patients very frequently. Whether close to these patients or not, their job requires them to put their emotions aside and care for these patients as well as view these loses as normal; the cycle of life and death. However the reality can’t be ignored that these incidents are affecting them in some way, shape, or form. For a doctor it is hard for them to not feel guilty over a patients death. This is because there are such high expectations for them to not make mistakes. Doctors are often put on a pedestal as being stoic and lack emotion, where they must be professional at all times. The truth is, however, that they are human and often times will relate with a patient on a personal level. Either because they relate to the patients ailments, or perhaps the patient reminds them of a family member. Other attributes may be that a substantial amount of time was spent with this patient. There seems to be even more problems with this area when it comes to general practice. Often times if the doctor was intensely involved with the dying patient they would make home visits. The typical hospice nurse lasts two years and then moves on to a different field and this may be due to the grief related stress which may have something to do with the fact that it seems unprofessional to express feeling of mourning. There isn’t much grief training built into nursing school, but perhaps there should be. The internet full of stories of nurses grieving, and a lot of these include hospice nurses. They are all heart felt and sincere stories, but almost all of them explain that they have been working for ‘X’ amount of years and never really allowed themselves the opportunity to grieve. As a human, a person is guaranteed to experience the death of a loved one at least one, but as a