2015.12.07
2015 MAYO Nurse Lecture: "End of Life Discussion in the Hospital Setting"
On Wednesday, October 28, 2015, the MAYO Nurse Lecture was held in Room 202 of the Koyosha building on the theme of "End of Life Discussion in the Hospital Setting."
This lecture series began in 1998, the year that nursing students from Keio University Nursing Junior College started their training at the Mayo Clinic in Minnesota, USA. Even after the Faculty of Nursing and Medical Care was established in 2001, the training at the Mayo Clinic has continued as a fourth-year elective course called "Clinical Nursing Practice (Overseas)." This year, 11 fourth-year students are undergoing training at the Mayo Clinic. Every fall, MAYO nurses visit Japan with the support of the Kimura Memorial Foundation for the Promotion of Nursing Education, and we take this opportunity to invite them to our university to hold a lecture.
This time, we welcomed four MAYO nurses. The speaker, Ms. Susan Kolar, addressed the difficult topic of End of Life Discussion. She began by outlining statistics on the current state of end-of-life care in the United States (mortality trends) to explain the importance of end-of-life care, and then introduced the SPIKES method, a technique used in end-of-life medical settings for "delivering bad news."
SPIKES is an acronym forSetting up the interview, Assessing the patient'sPerception, Obtaining the patient'sInvitation, GivingKnowledge and information, Addressing the patient'sEmotions, andStrategy andSummary. It outlines six steps for delivering bad news to patients. When conveying bad news, these steps are followed to guide the conversation, but Ms. Kolar explained, including through her own personal experiences, that there are barriers such as cultural, religious, and ethical values. Incidentally, the SPIKES protocol was a topic on the 2012 National Examination for Medical Practitioners.
Following the lecture, there was a lively discussion between the MAYO nurses and the students, making it a very meaningful event.