Abstract
Hospice care takes a variety of forms across the world, though the philosophy of “being there” remains similar across locations. Within the hospice approach, the suffering of the declining person is often not isolated to that single individual. Family members, paid care staff, and other healthcare workers feel their own pain when they experience the suffering of others. This chapter uses U.S.-based hospice workers’ descriptions of “difficult patients” to illustrate how hospice workers’ identities are related to suffering that extends beyond patients (diffusion of suffering). I find hospice workers suffer most when patients’ lives bring out the workers’ greatest fears, when patients remind them of their own personal loss, and when patients’ experiences make ethical questions salient. Each condition challenges the meaning of hospice work and identities, creating distress in hospice workers.
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Cain, C.L. (2015). Suffering and Identity: “Difficult Patients” in Hospice Care. In: Anderson, R. (eds) World Suffering and Quality of Life. Social Indicators Research Series, vol 56. Springer, Dordrecht. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-94-017-9670-5_7
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-94-017-9670-5_7
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