obituaries

does anyone else find themselves looking in the obits for former patients? my family thinks that i am totally bizarre, please confirm that this is yet another "nursing feature!"

[dianah, ASN]

Oh yeah, do it all the time. . . Funny thing is, some of the technologists and other nurses @ work do the same thing . . . NOT just a nurse thing! Might be an ageing-related thing tho' . . .

[Paprikat]

I do this every day. It is so weird, but I always wonder what happened to some of my residents when they leave....my friends think I am weird.

[Crawsu]

Doesn't everybody???

I used to do this more when I worked in the hospital, as I did work on a floor that dealt with more chronic type Dx. It's sort of a morbid curiosity type thing. Nurses are just more in touch with end of life issues and also more likely to articulate about it. It is really not weird at all. Just normal human curiosity.

[Ted]

When I worked on the hematology/oncology/BMT unit, we used to share obituary articles of our "former" patients. Sadly, we shared a lot of articles.

Ted

[fedupnurse]

I check them all the time. My father, who is a retired banker does too but he says it is just to make sure he hasn't died and didn't realize it. And people wonder where I get MY sick sense of humor from!

[aimeee, BSN, RN]

The heck with the front page. I go right to the obituaries...next to the comics.

[micro, RN]

no I don't ...... but then again, I am known to be different

[Anagray, BSN]

I usually read obituaries for no good reason. I don't know how to explain this. I guess matters of life present to me as much interest as matters of death.

Sometimes obituaries are interesting - u learn about a person u've never met and wonder at all the things they've accomplished in life.

a patient of mine died 5 minutes after i walked off the floor last monday. I learned about her through the obituary.

[RN-PA, RN]

Yep. I check the obits every day, not only to see if patients' names appear, but also because I've lived in the same town much of my life and often recognize names of family members of people with whom I went to high school or people from three different churches I've belonged to over the years.

[LasVegasRN]

Yep, all of us in our office read the obits every day. I still go online and read the obits in my hometown in Cleveland and in Toledo.

[CATHYW]

They are printed on the bottom left corner of the front page of the paper here. I check the list quickly as I am reading the front page. If it is someone I know or have taken care of, I go right to the obit. I think it is just a side effect of our profession.

Of course, when you begin seeing people younger than yourself or the same age, it hits you personally. (At least it hits me that way, and I thankful for another healthy day!)