Response to "Nursing Care at the Time of Death: A Bathing and Honoring Practice"
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I am a nurse in a bone marrow transplantation unit at the University of Florida Health Shands Hospital in Gainesville. We are a high-risk center in the sense that we care for transplant patients who have been denied at other centers. Our patients are very sick with resistant disease and often with multiple comorbidities as well. These sad facts translate into long, torturous, brave battles that end in death. The nursing staff, patients, and families become very close over many months of fighting together. We witness waves of death of these people we have grown to love. The staff has struggled with sadness and an inability to process so much grief.
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