Abstract
This journey cannot be told without first starting from the beginning and sharing some insights into a Masters experience. I became a Palliative Care nurse after experiencing the exceptional care provided by the Blue Nurses in Far North Queensland who cared for my mother during her dying. I have since then had a fascination with death and dying – and have continued to seek an understanding of what death means to me, to others, and more specifically to those that I have nursed while they were dying. Somehow, by becoming a Palliative Care Nurse I had only found more questions. How does one give comfort and dignity in dying? Does your attitude to death and dying have any impact on how well you die? How, if at all, has Palliative Care and the study and Science of Thanatology changed our thinking over the years?
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Ryan, K. (2012). Swimming With Piranha. In: Ryan, M. (eds) Reflections on Learning, Life and Work. SensePublishers, Rotterdam. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-94-6209-025-5_14
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