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More Than a Patient

College students experience end-of-life care

October 2024

By Mary Stone

 

Because of the requirements, the high pressure and fast pace, medical school generally cannot provide students with some of the experiences they ultimately need most: time with patients and their families to observe illness and death. For that, students need space to process their patients’ emotions as well as their own.

 

Hospeace House is a two-bedroom farmhouse operating as a Comfort Care Home since 2018. Funded by donations and grants, Hospeace House is run by local volunteers and staff who care for all the needs of its residents during their final days, weeks or months at no cost to patients or their families. 

 

For the second time since its inception, Hospeace House welcomed three St. Lawrence University students for a six-week internship program called the CARE fellowship. 

 

The Community Action, Research, and Education Fellowship supervised by Dr. Leah Rohlfsen, associate professor at St. Lawrence University, allows undergraduate students to work alongside residential comfort caregivers 30-35 hours a week in tandem with a structured educational program on the biological, psychosocial, emotional and spiritual aspects of dying.

 

The immersive program endeavors to impart confidence to future healthcare providers in providing end of life care. ​

 

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Fellows, who lived together in Naples for the duration of the program, say they have encountered patients through other internships, but they didn’t form relationships with them or experience end–of-life care.

 

“Sometimes, you can sit in a room and have a conversation with someone, and it can help them feel better,” says Paul Starliper, a biomedical science student at St. Lawrence University. “Sometimes, you just have to sit in the room and not talk and hold someone’s hand when they’re in a state of fear,” he says. 

 

“It’s being silent. Sometimes it was more about what we weren’t doing that was helping residents,” Paul adds. Sometimes, he says, it’s being there when family can’t be.

 

One of the program’s learning outcomes is to serve as a surrogate family member responsible for resident care needs, including toileting, and feeding, which in this end-of-life context, students explain, elevates the mundane to the profound: Driving to the store to get mayonnaise for what will be a resident’s last tuna sandwich or fetching a glass of water for a resident in their final hours.

 

“The lines are sort of blurred,” explains CARE fellow Macie Cunningham, a chemistry major who wants to become a pediatric orthopedic surgeon. The work had less to do with rules and administering medication and more to do with meeting individual needs as they arise. ”It’s empathetic care. You do whatever you can to take care of a patient,” Macie says.

 

Meika Nadeau, a biology major looking to become an occupational therapist, says her mother, a registered nurse, had reservations about Meika’s participation. “My parents were afraid of how it would affect me mentally and what I would think about death.” 

 

But with the support of the program of the other fellows, students said they were able to process and appreciate the duality in the dying process. 

 

“At the end, (residents) use their entire body to breathe. You feel as though you have grown very close to them,” Meika says. ‘When people are in pain, their brow will furrow and their face will scrunch up. It is very relieving to see all of that strain leave their face as they take their last breath. It’s very beautiful and peaceful, and you’re just very happy for them.”

 

Macie says her parents encouraged her to go to Naples. “My mom is also a registered nurse. She had worked at a nursing home. I think she sees beauty in death because of that background.”

 

Macie observed the contrast of pain and beauty. She said students were reminded of the fragility of life, of good health. “There was one resident who passed in the middle of the day. There were six of us. We stood around her and held hands as she passed.”

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Originally started by Dr. Carol Weisse, Psychology Professor at Union College, the CARE program has enrolled over 60 students from Colgate University, Connecticut College, Hobart and William Smith Colleges, Siena College, Skidmore College, St. Lawrence University, Union College and Wells College via partnerships with other Comfort Care homes in mostly Upstate New York.

 

Assessment data from the program show significant increases in empathy and an expanded sense of meaning in their own lives after spending time at the bedside of the dying. 

 

“We had patients we didn’t think would pass quickly who did and patients we thought would pass quickly who did not. I never knew what to expect, but it makes me look at everything different now,” Macie says.

 

“The torch is passed to younger generations. We have a responsibility to take care of the older generations. I do a lot for my grandma: I grocery shop for her and run all of her errands,” Macie adds. “Before, I might have seen that as, ‘Oh I can’t hang out with my friends today because I have to do this stuff for her,’ but now I see it as every moment with her is precious. It doesn’t matter if I’m just pushing a shopping cart, and she’s walking beside me: that’s a memory I will have forever.”

Contact Us

(585) 374-2090 Phone

(585) 374-2245 Fax

info@hospeacehouse.org

Visit Us

7824 County Rd 33 

Naples, NY 14512

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