Two main objectives were set by the group of eight students and an instructor the exploration of feelings and attitudes by the student toward his own dying and death and an appreciation of what the experience of dying is like in order to facilitate the development of the student's sensitivity to the needs of the dying patient and his family.…

Presents a valuable technique for focusing attention on personal mortality when teaching about death and dying, as a basis for more emotionally honest discussion in small groups, and for estimating attitudes towards death among medical students. (Author/PG)

The author discusses national survey data showing that seven of 107 medical schools have a full-term course in the area of death and dying, 44 have a minicourse, 42 have a lecture or two, and fourteen have no formal courses. A multidisciplinary approach tends to be stressed by the majority. (JT)

To see how clinical experiences affected attitudes about death and dying, students were tested before and after a 12-week surgical clerkship. Overall, students changed little in their fears of death and dying. Students who scored high on personality rigidity had more negative attitudes and changed less during the clerkship. (Author/MLW)

A systematic, preliminary evaluation of the impact of a death and dying workshop on participants' attitudes toward life and death is described. Results were statistically significant for one measure (fear of death) in the expected direction but not for two others (attitudes toward life and anxiety about death). (LBH)

Discusses how first-year medical students perceive phenomena related to death and suicide and how this affects the evaluation of teaching in this area. (Author/PG)

Medical education has offered limited assistance to the medical student encountering death for the first time. Courses on the social and psychological aspects of dying in medical school curricula are examined. (MLW)

A study to determine whether any previous training had been received in death counseling, to assess the need for resident physicians to provide such counseling, and to define the self-perceived confidence level of resident physicians in providing psychosocial support to dying patients and their families is described. (Author/MLW)

The author proposes the training of physicians in the use of a protocol to help a patient draw up a Living Will. The successful use of such a training protocol could begin to meet the existing need for a more structured education in the care of the terminally ill and to minimize uncertainty by achieving standards of uniformity in this aspect of…

Chaplains and seminary students enrolled in the University of Virginia Medical Center's Clinical Pastoral Program were asked to judge physicians' performances while requesting autopsies by completing a confidential evaluation form. The results of the evaluations were correlated with the physicians' success in obtaining autopsies. (MLW)