The professor-student relationship in coping with dying

Abstract

The new guidelines for undergraduate courses in the field of health care imply a need to prepare professionals to deal with life and death. To study death and dying in the context of nurse education means to contribute to the humanization of education and to preparing humanistic and critical professionals. We performed individual interviews with professors so that each could reveal their thoughts about experiencing death and dying in the educational relationship between nurse/professor and the nursing student in the hospital environment. Content analysis was performed using ideas close to those of Heidegger, revealing that education towards the concept and experience of death appears to be possible only if there is reflection regarding human existence, thoughts, and accepting finitude. By understanding one's own attitudes towards death and existence, it is possible to perceive possibilities in education for care in the death process.