By Alicia Marie Hinton, who is a BSN student at the College of New Rochelle School of Nursing in New Rochelle, NY. This is her first post for this blog.

My senior year preceptorship was an assignment on a palliative and acute care unit at a busy medical center. When I received the assignment, I prayed that no patient of mine would die during my time on the unit. Every nursing student is afraid of their first patient death. Simulation and course work prepare students in various ways for this experience, but nothing can really prepare you for the emotions you’ll feel. Some students experience a patient death during an undergraduate nursing program, but for others it may not happen until their first year or two working as an RN. I hoped to never endure it, but knew it was inevitable.

During report, working alongside my preceptor, I listened anxiously to the status of the various patients. Since my first day on the unit, I’d practiced my therapeutic techniques and researched different cultural needs pertaining to the death of a patient. I felt culturally competent and well informed about what a nurse should do when a patient dies, but I couldn’t shake my fear. What would I say to the family? Would they value […]