Death education in medical school: A seminar on terminal illness

Abstract

A seminar on terminal illness was developed by the faculty of the University of Washington School of Medicine and by health care professionals within the Seattle community. A variety of teaching strategies and learning resources was employed to accommodate the large class size (180 second-year medical students). Topics reviewed included personal attitudes toward death, patient and family reactions to dying, role of the physician, role of the clergy, children and death, medical ethics in terminal illness, aging and death, grief and mourning, symptom management, and new directions in the interdisciplinary care of terminal illness. Immediate evaluation by both students and faculty was excellent. Longer follow-up evaluation (at graduation) confirms the seminar's utility but also reveals the relatively limited contact with terminal illness experienced by most medical students.