Let me hear from you

As students, you may or may not have experienced a patient death.  I would like to hear from all of you regardless.  If you have experienced a death, please share with us the experience (as much as you are comfortable sharing); if you have not had the experience, let us know what you imagine it will be like or what fears you may have about dealing with your first patient death.

I have included an article written by a student nurse for all of you to review.  I believe it is very well written and has some great information for other students.  http://nursing.advanceweb.com/Article/Care-of-a-Dying-Patient-The-Nurses-Role.aspx

Webpages of interest to get you started

Here is the address for the AACN (American Association of Critical Care Nurses) page on palliative and end of life care: http://www.aacn.org/WD/Palliative/Content/PalAndEOLInfo.pcms?menu=Practice
This is a great resource with links to other sites as well. 

Also, here is the ENA (Emergency Nurses Association) Position Statement on End of Life Care in the ED: http://www.ena.org/SiteCollectionDocuments/Position%20Statements/EndofLifeCareintheEmergencyDepartment.pdf
as well as the ENA web page for further information: http://www.ena.org/Pages/default.aspx

Let me know what thoughts you have after visiting these resources.

Introductory post

Hello everyone, here is a little more information about me: I have been employed as an ICU and/or ER RN for my entire nursing career.  In that time, I have encountered many end of life situations...which means I have acquired real life experience with this topic.  However; that does not mean that I consider myself an expert by any means because each situation is unique to itself, as is each patient and each family that we encounter as RNs.

I have created this blog in order for us to share our thoughts, experiences, concerns, questions, insights, etc, regarding the provision of end of life care in the hospital setting.  I will be posting here throughout the course so please check back at least weekly for additional information.  I also expect that you will respond at least twice during the course to information presented here.  I want this to be a shared space where we can all benefit from each other's knowledge and experiences, and perhaps gain some valuable insight or suggestions on how we can better handle this unique and very important aspect of providing nursing care.  Please feel free to include any websites or pages you believe may be relevant and helpful for everyone to view.

As always, your suggestions and comments are welcome.