New Course Teaches Care During Death and Dying
A new class offered this fall by the School of Nursing teaches nurses how to help a patient prepare for death.
Called “Death and Dying: Exploring New Paradigms,” the class explores how to support dying patients, from pain management to understanding religious and cultural beliefs about death. It is taught by Megory Anderson, an adjunct faculty member and founder of the Sacred Dying Foundation, a non-profit organization that offers support for dying people.
“My study shows me most work is about helping the bereaved and not the dying and I want to change that,” said Anderson, author of Death and Dying: Creating Rituals for Embracing the End of Life. “It’s the responsibility of the living to help the dying, to pray them through.”
Class topics include: how death is handled in hospitals and nursing homes, how most people die, and when to take patients off life support. Next semester, the class will be offered to all undergraduates as fulfillment of their theology requirement.
Anderson and Betty Carmack, a USF nursing professor who helped initiate the class, hope to expand it into a certificate program co-sponsored by the school and Anderson’s foundation. It will consist of four courses offered to students and medical professionals as well as counselors and social workers. “The people who recognize the need are the people in the field,” Anderson said.
Anderson, a theologian and former Anglican monastic, became interested in scholarly work on death rituals about 10 years ago. Once her research began, friends and community members asked her to sit in with dying relatives when clergy weren’t available. Anderson came to see how much rituals helped both the dying and their loved ones understand and honor the experience.
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