Nursing students present research

“How do you help your patient have the death they desire?”

This question was incorporated into a video showcase examining death, hospice and patient care in Gorecki Fireside on Tuesday. The event, titled Death Café, exhibited the work and research done by CSB+SJU nursing students to aid healthcare workers in dealing with patient death.

CSB senior Skylar Burg, an undergraduate nursing student, and Jodi Olson, a graduate nursing student, spent the summer assembling a project to support healthcare workers in serving patients as they face death.

At the event, students were invited to join for refreshments, reflect upon death in their own life and hear the perspective of healthcare professionals both through a displayed video and conversations. Recently, Burg accepted a post-grad position in labor and delivery nursing and remarked upon how the subject of death contrasted with her new position of welcoming new lives into the world. “One thing is that birth is universal, and so is death,” Burg said. “Being skilled and helping people through their death and religion near death is something that everyone needs to know because everyone is going to go through it.”

Both Burg and Olson expressed their own experiences with loss and how they influenced their interest in the project. Burg lost her grandfather during her senior year of high school and two of her mother’s cousins just this past winter. Olson lost her grandmother during her senior year of nursing school.

Burg worked at the Quiet Oaks Hospice House in St. Cloud during her clinical experience. She remarked how the work they are doing on the project can aid workers at facilities like Quiet Oaks, where healthcare professionals encounter death regularly. Olson has worked as a registered nurse for nearly nine years since graduating from St. Cloud State. She is now studying at the CSB+SJU nursing graduate school to become a family nurse practitioner. “I worked at the bedside during COVID and experienced the death and dying of a lot of people that didn’t have their families or the proper tools for their death experience,” Olson said. “So that pushed me towards doing this project because there needs to be more education.”

At the event, students could reflect upon death in their own lives by writing on a sticker and choosing to paste it to the wall.

“Knowing that people will be OK when faced with death by grieving beforehand can make it better in the end,” Olson said. “Because you’ve talked about it already, you can have opinions about death and dying before you’re faced with it.”

Both Burg and Olson expressed hope to continue developing the project and to accumulate research and data. They hope this work can continue to help healthcare workers best deal with death.

“Everyone knows someone who has passed away and has needed to help their family members and friends,” Burg said. “These are important skills to know.”