Hospital doctors’ experiences of caring for dying patients
Keywords Communication, death, dying, education, end-of-life, palliative
Declaration of Interests No conflicts of interest declared.
The aim of this study was to identify the educational needs of year one North of Scotland foundation doctors caring for dying patients. A postal questionnaire approach was used. The results from the questionnaire (79/132 respondents) confirmed that year one foundation doctors are frequently exposed to patient death, with 61% finding their most memorable patient death to be emotionally distressing. A quarter (26%) of respondents had recent experience of significant personal bereavement.