1st Edition

Thanatology Curriculum -Medicine

Edited By Jeanne D. Cole Copyright 1988

    Offering practical suggestions for humane caregiving, this valuable new book is aimed at all providers of medical care. This compassionate volume focuses on the development of the thanatology curriculum--teaching caregivers who are just beginning their professional lives to be adequately prepared to deal appropriately with dying patients and their families and to cope with the personal toll exacted by this aspect of medical practice. At a time when increasingly complex medical technology promotes more impersonal contact between caregivers and patients, the contributors emphasize the importance of providing compassionate, responsive, and humane care to those whose lives are ending.

    Contents Preface
    • I. The Medical Curriculum: Status and Direction of Thanatology
    • Potentials and Pitfalls in Death Education in Medical Schools
    • Thanatology Offerings in United States Medical and Nursing Schools in 1984
    • Educational and Emotional Needs of Pediatric House Officers Who Care for Terminally Ill Children and Their Families
    • Current State of Thanatology Education in American Health Professions and an Integrated Model
    • Educating Allied Health Personnel: Seeing the Dying Patient as a Person
    • II. Approaches to the Medical Thanatology Curriculum
    • Death and Dying From Beginning to End of the Medical School Curriculum
    • The Thanatology Curriculum at University of Massachusetts Medical School
    • Patient Simulation: A Technique for Developing Competence in Encounters With Terminally Ill Patients
    • The Effects of a Liberal Arts Thanatology Course on the Health Care Professional
    • Combating Depersonalization in Caring for Terminally Ill Patients
    • Three Approaches to Death Education for Physicians and Allied Health Professionals
    • Testing the Medical Student’s Capabilities in Dealing With Death
    • III. Teaching the Relationship Between Caregiver and Patient
    • Denial of Dying: Educating Medical Students
    • Dreams as Manifestations of Students’ Anxiety About Medical Procedures
    • Treating Amyotrophic Lateral Sclerosis: Thoughts on the Thanatology Curriculum
    • Teaching the Physician-Patient Relationship
    • Death: A Natural Process

    Biography

    Jeanne D. Cole