A successful seven-day course offered to third-year medical students is an integrated program for teaching them how to deal with terminal illness. The course uses lectures, audiovisual aids, and group and individual sessions to enhance self-awareness and practical application of the material in a clinical setting. (Author/MSE)

Recounts personal experiences concerning art therapy as both a lymphoma patient and an artist. A few selections from two periods in the hospital illustrate physical and emotional pain. (JPS)

A review of studies on death awareness among children who are healthy, chronically ill, and terminally ill reveals that children with life-threatening diseases demonstrate increased understanding of death. In contrast, healthy and chronically ill children appear to require certain age, cognitive development level, or intelligence thresholds to…

As the members of the health care team who spend the most time with patients who are facing death, nurses are aware of the need for improved end-of-life (EOL) care and have identified resources to achieve that goal by improving education. A survey of 725 nursing faculty and state boards indicates an awareness of the need for improved EOL care and…

Finds that students who reported high communication apprehension (CAs) were less willing to communicate, less willing to volunteer, less willing to work with terminally ill patients, and felt less confident about their communication than low CAs, and disclosed less to terminally ill patients than did people in any other circumstance. (SR)

Describes the elements of a program in hospice and palliative medicine that may serve as a model of an effective system of physician education. Topics for the palliative-care curriculum include hospice medicine, breaking bad news, pain management, the process of dying, and managing personal stress. (JOW)

Interviews with 12 fourth-year student nurses in Scotland indicated that they found communicating with terminally ill and dying patients and their families difficult. Although lectures on death and dying were helpful, support and guidance for dealing with these issues in clinical practice were needed. (SK)

A study illustrates how legal sanction promotes a culture that transforms suicide into assisted suicide and encourages choosing death when faced with serious illness. The question of extending legal euthanasia to those not physically ill complicates the issue. Also, doctors may feel they can end a terminally-ill patient's life without consent.…

Tuberculosis is reappearing with increasing prevalence and presenting new treatment challenges. Art therapy, which partly originated in a tuberculosis sanatoria, again serves to assist patients in coping with their illness and confinement. Case examples illustrate aspects of the disease and related emotions and highlight the potential for such an…

A therapist recounts her experiences working in a large AIDS long-term care facility in New York City, and the value of art therapy in helping infected people deal with the unpredictable effects of the virus. (JPS)

Describes the role and responsibilities of advanced-practice nurses in palliative care and nursing's initiative in promoting high-quality care through the educational preparation of these nurses. (JOW)

Examined how circumstances of a suicide victim's life may influence people's responses in college students (n=180) who read a fictitious newspaper article about a man who committed suicide following psychological pain, physical pain, or terminal illness. Results indicated that subjects were intolerant of suicide when the victim was suffering from…

Based on nearly three years of participant-observation research in hospice settings, factors that interfere with the hospice philosophy of providing patient autonomy include efforts at symptom control, patient residence, patient disease state, and staff limit setting. Discusses examples, implications, and staff attempts at solutions. (JPS)

Explores many dimensions of suicide among the terminally ill, including preemptive, surcease, and rational suicide. The critical issues addressed are the incidence of suicide in HIV-positive individuals, contributing factors associated with the risk of suicide among people with HIV/AIDS, and the clinical and ethical implications of this issue for…

Administered measures of overt and covert fear of death to 20 healthy men and 13 men diagnosed with Acquired Immune Deficiency Syndrome (AIDS). Groups did not differ significantly on overt measure; AIDS group had higher total scores on covert measure. Findings suggest that one's life trajectory is redefined when the diagnosis of terminal illness…