Nurse Patient Interview Paper

Learning about different death and dying process made me think about what healthcare professions go through on a day to day basis. Caring for patients with different religious beliefs in the dying process trying to help them as much as you can without interfering with their beliefs must be very difficult. As for myself, I am pursuing a career in nursing, which deals with death on, unfortunately, a regular basis, I have always wondered how these healthcare professionals cope with death and if I will be able to cope with death when I become a nurse. I had the opportunity to interview a hospice nurse who does go through situations and has had to learn how to cope with it all. Shannon Greene is a hospice nurse in South Carolina. Before interviewing

It is well known that nurses are loving and caring to their patients. This statement from Shannon is a great piece of advice. When caring for a patient, you do not want to seem like you do not care about them. You may think that in order not to get emotionally attached to a patient, especially a patient who is in hospice, you cannot show them or let yourself get emotionally attached and in order to do this, it may seem like you have to believe you do not emotionally care for the patient. But in order not to be attached to a patient does not means you cannot seem to care about them. That actually seems like a bad idea to me because the patients would not feel comfortable and feel as if they are in good hands at the hospice facility they are at. After Shannon explained this to me, I was able to understand that there is a difference between being empathetic and being sympathetic. When being sympathetic, I feel as if you are more vulnerable to get emotionally attached to the patient. But, being empathetic shows that you do care for the patient and that you do want what is best for them. Being empathetic is to show that you understand what the patient is going through and to be able to better help them. The way I differentiate sympathetic and empathetic is, for example, your friend ripped their favorite shirt. Being sympathetic, you would say “that’s too bad” and feel sorry and sad for them. Being empathetic in this situation would be to try and help your friend fix their favorite shirt. For nursing, I feel as if this best defines how to be empathetic towards your patients and not being too sympathetic. So, you try to help your patient instead of feeling sorry for