The dying patient

The dying patient experiences extraordinary emotional stress, as do the family and physician. Their distress is compounded by the fact that members of our society are poorly prepared to deal with death. The defenses that individuals mobilize to deal with their death-anxiety are often maladaptive. The psychiatrist, through the use of understanding of psycho-dynamics, can help herself or himself and then others in responding adaptively to the dying patient. Most medical schools all but ignore death education, despite the clear relevance of such teaching to their students. Psychiatric educators have a role to play in developing and implementing the psychological study of terminal illness in medical schools.