Communicating Spirituality, Dying and a “Good Death” at the End-of-Life: The Role of Hospice Interdisciplinary Team Members

Hospices use interdisciplinary teams to aid patients and families as they cope with the imminence of death while helping them achieve a death free of physical and spiritual pain, also known as a good death. This study investigated the communication between hospice team members and their patients regarding spirituality, dying, death and a good death. Through 300 hours of participant observation and interviews with hospice staff at one large not-for-profit hospice in the Southeastern United States this project shows that team members understand patient\u27s spirituality through a religious frame potentially compromising spiritual care. Talk between patients and their care team rarely focuses on what constitutes a good death and team members eventually come to narrate all hospice deaths as good

Truth Troubles

“truth” is an issue of public discussion, research, and everyday performance. Processes of navigating truth, however, are obscure and often unknown. In this project, the authors highlight truth(s) of written life texts. They conceive of truth as a rather than the “rhetorical device” to use for evaluating personal research and believe that demanding factual, historical truth-of-life research is faulty and problematic. By illustrating how genre, trust, memory, and confession influence truth telling, the authors hope to question and enhance truth-related conversations