Preparing for Death, Dying and Bereavement Care: Student Paramedic Perspectives on a Novel Learning Module
Date
Authors
Anderson, Natalie Elizabeth
Satchell, Eillish
Tseng, Bruce
Shaw, Brayden
McAulay, Mel
Supervisor
Item type
Journal Article
Degree name
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Journal ISSN
Volume Title
Publisher
Informa UK Limited
Abstract
Emergency ambulance personnel are commonly the last health professionals to care for people in the moments before death and the first to provide families with bereavement care, particularly when death is sudden or unexpected. Despite this, paramedic training seldom discusses, simulates or assesses termination of resuscitation, or breaking bad news to family. This paper describes paramedicine students’ experiences of a dedicated learning module designed to prepare them for patient death and caring for bereaved families. A lecture, small-group case studies and actor-led simulations were embedded into paramedic degree students’ final year of study. Students shared their perspectives on learning about death, dying, and bereavement through focus groups or an online survey. Students found talking about death and supporting acute grief unfamiliar and uncomfortable. Eager to provide reassurance in a crisis, many expressed ongoing concerns about saying the wrong thing. Participants wanted greater integration of challenging communication and cultural responsiveness throughout their degree, noting opportunities for learning during clinical placements were precious but limited. Actor-led simulation of patient death and family grief presented an important but unfamiliar divergence from standardized, action-packed resuscitation scenarios. Greater acknowledgement of death, dying and bereavement throughout training could better prepare paramedics for the realities of emergency ambulance work.Description
Keywords
4203 Health Services and Systems, 42 Health Sciences, Emergency Care, Clinical Research, Generic health relevance, 1110 Nursing, 1117 Public Health and Health Services, Gerontology, 4203 Health services and systems, 4205 Nursing, Communication, death notification, palliative care, death, bereavement, paramedics, education, emergency care
Source
Progress in Palliative Care, ISSN: 0969-9260 (Print); 1743-291X (Online), Informa UK Limited, ahead-of-print(ahead-of-print), 1-10. doi: 10.1080/09699260.2026.2650905
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© 2026 The Author(s). Published by Informa UK Limited, trading as Taylor & Francis Group. This is an Open Access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/), which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original work is properly cited. The terms on which this article has been published allow the posting of the Accepted Manuscript in a repository by the author(s) or with their consent.