Nursing students learning to respect culture, tradition at the end of life
Nursing students learning to respect culture, tradition at the end of life
St. Cloud Live, St. Joseph, MN; by Stephanie Dickrell; 9/6/24
It is called the golden hour — the hour before someone’s death. It’s a time of grief, but it’s also a sacred space. Two nursing instructors at the College of St. Benedict and St. John’s University are trying to make that time better for patients and their loved ones by better preparing their students who will be with them in their final moments. While the rituals surrounding death may vary by time, geography and culture, the program wants to make sure all cultures are respected. ... Julie Keller Dornbusch and Mary Pesch, both trained as Advanced Practice Registered Nurses ... received a prestigious grant from the Morgan Family Foundation of nearly $100,000 to create and test nursing simulations using culturally specific care for the Catholic community, Somali Muslims and Ojibwe people.
Editor's note: This article indicates that "training material on culturally specific end-of-life care" is non-existent. This statement is misleading. Examine:
- This 2002 article about ELNEC's "Cultural Considerations in End of Life Care" module, and its list of resources rolled out in 2002: Teaching cultural considerations at the end of life: end of life nursing education consortium program recommendations. (ELNEC led the way back then.)
- In approximately 2006, NHPCO rolled out a toolkit for cultural care by hospice and palliative professionals, including extensive online education resources. (While outdated now, these references/resources would have grown and improved in relevance and content, not diminished.)
- The current, robust webpage by the American Association of Colleges of Nursing: Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion.
Still, we applaud these two APRN's for obtaining this grant and implementing its innovative cultural education. The strength of this article is its use of nursing simulations for the specific cultures identified.