Reframing Views of Terminally Ill Patients and the Radiation Therapists' Role in Their Care through Engaged...

The purpose of this study is to explore innovative teaching methodologies to reframe radiation therapy students' perceptions of who a terminally ill patient is. This will allow students to better meet their patients' needs in their future work with this unique demographic.

This qualitative case study explores the experiential and transformational learning that took place when a hospice-based engaged scholarship project was incorporated into a radiation therapy course. Data presented consists of students' individual guided reflection answers and individual student interviews reflecting on their experience working with hospice patients.

Through this project, students recognized companionship as one of the greatest needs of their hospice patients and planned to use that information in their future clinical practice. Students also gained a better understanding of the difference between curative and palliative treatment and reframed their preconceived notions of the palliative patients they were seeing in the clinic.