What Do You Mean He’s Dead?
The patient is dead, and the family members are now filled with a wide range of reactions and emotions. The death scene is perhaps one of the most difficult calls you will face, not only because the moments surrounding a death scene are critical for the grieving family, but you as the health care professional may need to cope with your own personal grief and stress-related anxieties. This course will help you provide a valuable service for grieving people while enhancing your own perception of success in a situation where we often only feel failure.
Objectives
- Discuss the five stages of the grieving process.
- Discuss how the paramedic can provide care and enhance emotional support in situations that involve sudden unexpected death.
- Describe methods of helping family members and friends through the initial stages of the grieving process involving death and dying of the terminally ill.
- Describe the common needs of the patient and family (including children) in dealing with death and dying.
- Discuss how cultural attitudes and personal beliefs effect individual reactions toward death and the grief process.
- Discuss methods of coping with personal grief and stress EMS personnel may experience following the death of a patient.