We considered the questionnaire responses in relation to Scottish Government policy and initiatives associated with the care of the dying, and the future training and support of doctors caring for this group of patients and their relatives.Ĭonclusion Doctors describe similar experiences in terms of communication difficulties and emotional effects of caring for dying patients irrespective of their length of time working as a doctor. It was designed to help budding physicians understand how spirituality, end-of-life care, and medicine interact. To fill that gap, I enrolled in a course at Harvard Medical School on communication strategies during end-of-life care. There was no association between difficulty rating and length of time working as a doctor when talking to relatives about death and dying (p-value: 0.205). One of the things I needed to learn but didn’t was how to talk with people about death and dying. EmbargoedforreleaseatNoon,18June2014 1 Doctors’and’nurses’report’inadequacies’in’medical’&nursing’ education,’training,’communication. There was no association between length of time as a doctor and difficulty rating for talking to patients about death (p-value: 0.203). Responding doctors reported benefit from peer support. A total of 65% of responding doctors agreed that their most memorable patient death had had a strong emotional impact upon them. palliative care, care for dying, palliative care training, doctors, nurses According to two experts on palliative care, the recent guidelines from the National Institute for Health and Care Excellence on care of the dying provides evidence but not much help at the bedside. A quarter of respondents had personal experience of bereavement outside of clinical practice within the previous year.

Of responding doctors 55% had cared for 10 or more patients in the previous year. Results There was an overall 41% response rate (127/306). Foundation year one doctors (F1s) are expected to recognise and care for dying patients, but previous studies have found they can feel unprepared, stressed and. Method A postal questionnaire was sent to 306 doctors working in inpatient medical and surgical specialties, emergency medicine, anaesthetics and intensive care medicine in an acute hospital. Background The aim of this study was to examine, by means of a postal questionnaire, the experience of all grades of doctors caring for patients dying in an acute hospital in Scotland.

Doctors in training are dying