Achieving Excellence in End-of-Life Care

Abstract

Nurses in practice have verified the need for nursing education curricula to include content related to care of the dying patient. Nurse educators are initiating curricular changes to assure students have the knowledge and attitudes needed to provide quality care at the end of life. The authors discuss one university undergraduate program's development of both a theory and practicum course.

Student nurses’ experience of and attitudes towards care of the dying: A cross-sectional study

“…4 Nurses play a key and substantial role in the delivery of palliative care and need to be adequately prepared for a role that is simultaneously growing and changing, now encompassing conditions beyond cancer, open discussions and set plans of care, and considered a generalist rather than a specialist skill. [5][6][7][8] In England, the End of Life Care Strategy included calls for improvements in quality care for dying patients and better and more widespread training in end-of-life care for healthcare providers. 9 A gap in the training needs and training provision for those delivering care at the end of life has been noted.…”

The Effects of a Spiritual Learning Program on Improving Spiritual Health and Clinical Practice Stress Among Nursing Students

“…4, DECEMBER 2012 Spiritual Learning Program to spiritual awareness as essential to improving spiritual growth (Bruce & Cockreham, 2004;Scandurra, 1999). It was possible that the ''learning and reflecting sheet'' that was designed to encourage participants' reflective thinking and discussions of their own life quests in each unit helped improve participants' spiritual growth (Pimple, Schmidt, & Tidwell, 2003). Participants were encouraged to apply spiritual coping strategies in daily life through, for example, deriving meaning, helping others, positive thinking, and giving thanks.…”

Achieving Excellence in Nursing Management

“…In nursing management literature, ‘excellence’ is not a new topic, but rather has been a focus of interest since the early 1990s. Pursuit of ‘excellence’ became a common theme during the 20th century and authors have written about the topic from different perspectives in health care (Pimpel et al. 2003, Lipsy 2005), practice (Driever et al.…”