UDaily: UD nursing students learn about death and dying at funeral home

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UD photo by Evan Krape

In a PBS documentary called The Undertaking, poet and funeral director Tom Lynch says that we have become estranged about death and the dead. Later in the show, he says, “While the dead don’t care, the dead matter.”

Cynthia Diefenbeck wants to make sure that her nursing students at the University of Delaware don’t become estranged about death and the dead, and she wants them to know that the dead do indeed matter. So the requirements for her senior-level course, Care of Dying Patients and their Families, include watching The Undertaking and touring a local funeral home.

Afterwards, they’re asked to comment on the experience in a forum on the course . “One of the elements that’s underrepresented in health care provider curriculums across the country is care of dying patients and all that follows,” says Diefenbeck, assistant professor in the School of Nursing..

”The class tour is provided courtesy of Rick Harra, a 1980 graduate of UD and owner of McCrery and Harra Funeral Homes and Crematory in Wilmington, Del.

Harra, whose wife, Amy, holds a nursing degree from UD, agrees with Diefenbeck’s belief in the need for nursing students to become acquainted with death.

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“The more honest, straightforward information these students can absorb, the more effective they’ll be when they have to deal with the family of a patient who has died or is dying,” he says.During the 90-minute tour, Harra’s nephew Todd, who is also in the family business, delivers a presentation he calls “Mortuary 101,” which provides basic information about topics ranging from burial and cremation options, types of services, and religious issues to preparation of the body and casket selection.

He then takes the group into the casket selection room, which is open to the public, and the embalming room and crematorium, which are not.

via Nursing students learn about death and dying at funeral home.

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