Death and the Healthcare Professional

The assignment discusses the concept of death and dying from a healthcare professional's perspective. It highlights the importance of palliative care, focusing on improving quality of life for patients with serious illnesses. The role of close communication with patients is also emphasized, enabling them to make informed decisions about their treatment options. Additionally, the assignment touches upon how nurses' views on death can change over time and emphasizes the importance of enhancing patient comfort, alleviating symptoms, and empowering them to take control of their care.

Unit 10
1

Death is one such incident that every individual needs to face. Being a health care professional, I
experience death and dying people almost every day. However, the conception related to death
changes with the culture and the religion. Irrespective of the view of death as well as the dying
process, handling the situation related to death and dying process is always difficult, especially
when someone is dealing with the death of family members , friends or near ones (Glaser &
Strauss, 2017). In such cases, the individuals need to deal with a different level of spiritual and
emotional difficulties.
From the healthcare perspective, the death is viewed in a different way. The professionals, when
analyze the death and dying process, they focus more on the concepts related to palliative care ,
the concept of patients regarding euthanasia, the concept of graceful aging. In other words, the
healthcare professionals such as the nursing professionals usually consider that death is an
inevitable incident (Cardona-Morrell & Hillman, 2015). However, it is necessary to ensure that
an individual is getting proper care at the dying stage as well. When an individual is suffering
from the serious illness, the palliative care ensures that the patient is living in the last stage of the
life with comfort. In case of palliative care, the healthcare professionals give importance on
keeping the patients free from the pain and stress of the illness.
Improving quality of life is one of the areas on which the healthcare professionals emphasize on.
The aim of palliative care is improving quality of life of the patients (McKean, 2016). The
serious illness often causes the symptoms like depression, pain, fatigue, shortness of breath,
appetite loss, difficulty in sleeping and anxiety. The role of healthcare is important in this case.
The healthcare professionals, especially the nursing professionals focus on dealing with the
symptoms of the individuals which cause distress among the patients. It helps the dying
individuals to live in a comfortable manner.
Close communication with the patients is another factor that the healthcare professionals give
importance on. The close communication with the patients helps them to understand all the
treatment options available to them (Dineen, 2016). In the contemporary healthcare services, the
patients are empowered to take decisions regarding the medical intervention process. Close
communication with the patients are effective to help them in making informed choices.
2

While working as a nursing professional, the view of an individual on death ca change with time.
The nursing professionals is often considered as an obvious outcome. However , in any situation,
the professionals give importance on enhancing comfort of the patients, getting rid of the
symptoms. In addition, the nursing professionals also give importance on empowering the
patients to take decisions about the treatments through information sharing.
3

References:
Cardona-Morrell, M., & Hillman, K. (2015). Development of a tool for defining and identifying
the dying patient in hospital: Criteria for Screening and Triaging to Appropriate aLternative care
(CriSTAL). BMJ supportive & palliative care, bmjspcare-2014.
Dineen, K. K. (2016). Dying fast & slow: Improving quality of dying and preventing untimely
deaths: Foreword.
Glaser, B. G., & Strauss, A. L. (2017). Awareness of dying. Routledge.
McKean, S. (2016). Principles and practice of hospital medicine. J. J. Ross, D. D. Dressler, & D.
Scheurer (Eds.). McGraw-Hill Medical Publishing Division.
4