Critical Reflection Paper

This is a critical reflection regarding of the management of the scenario 4: palliative care, which was raised by the author’s peers. Topics such as: the effectiveness and logical of the management; also the application and usefulness of the management styles for nursing care delivery will be discussed. The author will further discuss several areas, such as palliative care, talking about death and dying, importance of open and truthful communication, what is good death, complementary and alternative medicine and also hospice care within this piece of work.

Up-to-date, the medical advances have not only prolong our life span, but also have changed the way we die (Ho Andy et al, 2013). As death and dying are prolonged and institutionalized,

However, to avoid difficult and challenging conversation on the mentioned topic (Portin and Jordan, 2013). One has to make sure that, if the patient ready for this kind of discussion, and what is the patient’s perceptions of death and dying? A study by Tan and Chin (2011) indicate that, the Chinese in Singapore tend to have a strong taboo of speaking of death or associating with death. Reason of being so, is because for them, to mention death is to invite it or would be bad luck (Tan and Chin, 2011). Besides that, Huang et al (2015) also mentioned that: “in Chinese culture, death has been associated with distress, fear, and a mystery, and people refrain from talking about death directly or openly”. Research results pointed out that the differences in cultural backgrounds might interfere with the understanding and achievement of a good death (Long, 2001). Then again, Tan and Chin (2011) presented in difference in opinion by stating that: “it is likely that the research results from the First world country (such as in Europe, United States of America, Canada and others) do not apply well to the Singapore context, given that many value-based and culture-based factors” involved within this

A review of current studies done by Lee, Woo, and Goh (2013) suggests that there is no shared understanding of what a good death is. But then again, good death is a subjective interpretation, which depend upon the perspective and experience of an inndividual (Kehl, 2006), and frequently influenced by culture. Rather, Chan and Epstein (2011/2012) explained ‘good death’ as the records of patients indicating no pain (physical) or anxiety (psychological), and having open and honest communication with family (social) in the final assessment by the Support Team Assessment Schedule (STAS) just before death. In spite of that, researchers have look into account of finding what good death means (Chan, Tse, and Chan, 2006; Lethborg, Aranda, Cox, and Kissane, 2007; Mak, 2002; Virik and Glare, 2002). As stated by Chan and Epstein (2011/2012), it is crucial for health care professionals to be able to properly assess the patient and the patient’s family in the early stages of palliative care in order to provide timely intervention over the course of service, and to improve the quality of living and dying. Then, with effective communication between health care professionals and patient, ones can provide good death if the patient verbalised of having desire of unmet needs (Bernacki and Block,