AMSA Death and Dying Interest Group

This my first blog experience. I hope my personal commentary is exciting enough to spark change and inspire the hearts and minds of end-of-life professionals everywhere... but I'll settle for just a little extra attention. A little about me and why on earth a bright-eyed bushy-tailed 24-year-old medical student is and/or should be interested in death and dying: It is precisely because my fellow students are not expected to, nor are they comfortable enough to deal with end-of-life issues. Therein lie the missions of the American Medical Student Association's Death and Dying Interest Group: to enable and empower our peers to confront end-of-life issues in their own lives and in those of their patients.

Instead of "those who can't, teach", many of us budding pain management/palliative care/hospice physicians feel that "those who can should."  We want to make sure that those who can do and that those who can't either go into pathology, or learn at least the basics of dealing with end-of-life issues, caregiver stress, and referral to hospice.

So, how do we do this? And furthermore, what do we as medical students want or need to know about death, dying, and hospice?

Hopefully, this blog will address some of these issues. I'll offer a few quick answers generally for today.

First, medical students are frightened by and fascinated with death. We fear patient death in almost the same way we fear an exam... we know it will be scary for an hour or two, and we know there are certain things we can do to prepare, but after a certain point no amount of studying will improve our grade, and we just want to get it over with whether or not we fail miserably. And so, death becomes an obstacle to overcome rather than an experience to navigate. One thing that has helped my colleagues is exercises in defining death, physiologically and philosophically. Students somehow feel better with pathophysiological parameters of what's going on such that once they know exactly what will happen, they can then prepare themselves for possible emotions they will experience.

Comments

[Emme]

New to this too! I've been an RN for 10+years and I am so amazed to learn about your SIG group and this blog. I became interested in end of life issues - because all the other nurses on my unit - talked about how they disliked caring for patients who were dying. Excuse me? this is an oncology unit... and eventually we are all going down that path.

I've turned my experience into education for the residents and med students during rounds and when I had to call them to the unit for whatever reason. (I worked at a teaching institution). And now, I'm a college instructor, developing an elective course for nursing students and anyone else who wants to learn about end of life issues.

You will develop the skills and knowledge you need to talk with and care for patients before (and after) they die. And I do use the 'D' word. Patients die - they don't expire. Milk and driver's licenses expire. People die. And that's the truth.

Caring for and communicating with patients as they die involves a lot of listening. Actively.

It's refreshing to learn that you are actively pursuing this quality. Continue on.