Death and Dying

I am scared to be an ICU nurse in the future. Our culture does not accept death and dying as part of life. It is just something we don't talk about. Instead, it is something that should be avoided at all costs, and we should be able to fix EVERYTHING with medicine and technology. More people today are living with chronic illness. I often ask myself the question, are we prolonging life or prolonging the dying process?

Don't get me wrong, I value life just as much as anybody else. I don't believe anybody should suffer. I do believe in giving symptom management, caring, and comfort for a person. I just fear the times where quantity of life becomes more important than quality of life.

I have seen and heard about instances where the conversation of death just avoided, and than it is too late, and the possibility was never discussed. I don't know if physicians don't want to discuss death because they are trained to save lives and find a cure, so it would be admitting a failure. Since nurses are the people that spend time with the patient and family, we end up being put on the spot to discuss the prognosis and future for their disease.

There is no easy answer, but I know it is just going to get harder as we come up with more ways to prolong life.