Essay Example: Interview with a Nurse about the View of death

How often do you engage with or witness death in your work?

I have been a nurse for the last 10 years. Before I moved to the elderly care unit, I used to work in a hospital generally administering drugs to patients and scheduling them for medical procedures like surgery. In that setting, I did not witness as many deaths as I experience now. At times I even lose count of the patients we lose per week given that the people in this facility are elderly people. Most of my patients in this unit suffer from chronic diseases while others are generally suffering from old age. Some of them are stubborn to take their medication while others refuse to eat. I can estimate the total number of deaths in the nursing home that I witness per week to be 10 deaths. Although the causes of the deaths vary, most of them succumb to their illnesses.Atleast 3 patients die in a week as a result of old age.

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How has this experience or the lack of it shaped your view of death?

Death is natural process that must be experienced by all human beings. My attitude towards dying and death was that of avoidance and fear before I became a geriatrics in a nursing home. This was because of my fear for mortality and lack of awareness. The exploration of the experiences with death has helped me understand the link between fear of mortality and awareness of death, with the effects of medicalization (American Nurses Association, 2001). My adaptation of the death and dying process has been facilitated by the decline of religious influence and medical profession. The removal of the fear for death and dying has been increased by the vision of the palliative care in the geriatric nursing (Meilaender, 2013).

My experience has enabled me to view death as a universal fact of life of humans. The diverse traditions and rituals associated with the process of dying and death are revealed across the multicultural society. The nature of response of the grieved towards death depends on the prevailing circumstances that surrounds the death of an individual. Besides, the emotions and feelings expressed by the people around them will also shape the ability of the grieved to contend with death and the loss of their loved ones (American Nurses Association, 2001).

Has it gotten easier or harder for you to accept the fact of death?

It has been easier for me to accept the fact of death. Deaths as a result of suicide and AIDS are given less empathy because of the perception of the personal responsibility. Involvement in the care of the dying has exposed me to all the aspects of grief and death. My communication with the dying patients and sensing appropriate time in discussing the issues of terminal illness is very important. The socially-associated perceptions of death are not singularly influenced by the sources of media, but to child hood socialization of individuals. Parental experiences and parental fear of loss can indirectly motivate the anxiety and fear relating to death and the process of dying. Since the efforts in addressing the uncertainty and fear of death forms the basis of most of the palliative care strategies, through this, I have learnt to accept the fact of death with ease (Grodin and George Annas Michael, 2008).

References

American Nurses Association. (2001). Code of ethics for nurses with interpretive statements. Nursesbooks. org.

General Assembly of the World Medical Association. (2014). World Medical Association Declaration of Helsinki: ethical principles for medical research involving human subjects. The Journal of the American College of Dentists, 81(3), 14.

Grodin, George J. Annas Michael A. (2008). "The Nuremberg Code." The Oxford Textbook of Clinical Research Ethics 1770.

Meilaender, G. (2013). Bioethics: A primer for Christians (3rd ed.). Grand Rapids, MI: Wm. B. Eerdmans Publishing Co. ISBN-13: 9780802867704