Dying ‘Beautifully’ in the Rio Grande Valley: Rivera-Burciaga embeds end-of-life nursing into UTRGV curriculum: National Nurses Week is May 6-12

Dying ‘Beautifully’ in the Rio Grande Valley: Rivera-Burciaga embeds end-of-life nursing into UTRGV curriculum: National Nurses Week is May 6-12 
UTRGV, The University of Texas Rio Grande Valley - The Newsroom, Rio Grande Valley, TX; by Karen Villarreal; 5/9/25 
Death, for the most part, makes people uncomfortable. But not UTRGV’s Dr. Andrya Rivera-Burciaga.  After a personal loss early in her nursing career drove her to seek advanced certification in hospice and palliative care, she has made it her life’s work to normalize conversations about death and dying.   ... While Rivera-Burciaga’s efforts successfully have woven palliative care into the UTRGV nursing curriculum, her Ph.D. research on the unique cultural perspective of death and dying among Mexican Americans aims to further tailor the care that nurses provide to end-of-life patients in South Texas.  ... Through clinical interviews, Rivera-Burciaga found that many individuals of the Mexican American culture are afraid to die – despite engaging in Día de los Muertos, a celebration of death every November. “We've built a compassionate community for the dying, yet we don't say it by name. Many Mexican Americans in the United States believe that to talk about death invites it. Or, that we don't have time to be depressed, or that even in mourning men don't cry,” she said.