Death influence in clinical practice: A course for graduate students

A course for graduate instruction was designed to provide for analysis and study of the social, cultural, and psychological conditions that influence death in modem society. The course was open to any graduate student with an interest in the topic, xoith enrollment limited to 16 participants. The formal objectives emphasize the cognitive focus of the course, but there is an overall goal of facilitating an integration of intellectual and emotional learnings in relation to death and dying. Methods of instruction include weekly seminars, experiential out-of-class assignments, specific written assignments, and readings. Seminar topics include social values and death in human society, cultural variations and death expectations, death and the family, institutional death: its fortns and effects, life versus death: an occupational dilemma, recovery care versus comfort care: nurses' problems, dying as a Personal experience, effect of dying on social interaction, and unresolved problems and major issues. Follow-up evaluation by questionnaire for students enrolled betiveen 1971 and 1979 produced a response rate of 55.8 percent with a generally favorable evaluation. The instructor made deliberate efforts to use the seminar as a situation for encouraging the integration of emotional and cognitive learnings. A variety of instructional strategies are described.