How to deal with death?

HazelLPN, LPN · May 26, 2005

I am 19 and I recently graduated from nursing school and I got a job at a nursing home. I love my job, I love the residents and staff. Recently we have been having many deaths, I understand the NH is the last place before death but it is harder then I thought. I have never been able to deal with death well but I thought if they were not related and i knew they were headed out it would be easier. How do you serperate your feelings and emotions. I think I cry more then the family and I am suppose to be there to provide support and make the resident comfortable. Is there any trick to dealing with this? Does it ever become easier? Should I think about a new job? PLease help because I cant keep acting like a baby evertime someone dies.

Well, I'm almost 70 years old and sometimes I cry when a patient dies....we all do. I work in MICU were most of our patients are very very sick. However, I know my patients are in the best possible place that they can be..and I know that I help make it that way.

It does get easier I suppose..but I wouldn't go as far to say "you get used to it" because every patient is different. If it is someone who has been suffering for a long time, I look at it as their suffereing has ended. Several years ago year, I was taking care of a 14 year old girl who had been deliveing papers early in the moring and was struck by a drunk driver. Very bad CHI, lots of mannitol, cooling blanket...her K was 1.8 at one point. All I did was give bolus after bolus. We were assessing for brain death that day. Her mother was there talking to her, talking to God about how he could let something like this happen. I greived right along with the family. After my shift was over, I drove straight to my son's house and held my 12 year old grandaughter. You never forget things like that. But, I would like to think that I provided comfort to both the patient and to her family before her soul found rest. I make sure that my patients leave this world with someone being kind to them. People enter the world with love, and they should leave it, if possible, in the same way.

Hope this helps

Mrs. H

CHATSDALE · May 26, 2005

this goes with the territory..we are about to enter into a hospice program at where i work and they are to have some classes...i think, through, that these classes are to prepare you to work with terminally ill pts. like how to answer questions..to offer support to them and to the family

if you cry try and cry away from the family..they need strength at that time..also it has an adverse effect on other residents who may see you crying

Blackcat99 · May 26, 2005

It will get easier as time passes. My first real job was working as an aide at a nursing home. I'll never forget when I was told that one of my patients had just died. I was so attached to that lady. Her son had to console me because I was crying so hard. He kept telling me over and over "It's OK. She had a good life. Don't worry. She's in heaven etc. etc. etc. I now work in hospice :)

shopgal, RN · May 26, 2005

I worked in LTC as a CNA for several years and now as a nurse, I work on a long term vent unit. My pts in LTC it was hard, but I could say, "Well, they were old and lived their lives" and be happy for them, etc. To say that it was ever easy, no. But now most of my pts are fairly young and it is harder, I have cried with families and I don't think that it's always a bad thing, we are after all human. I just try to be happy for them that the suffering is over. I think that the day that it gets easy is the day that I need to find a new career.