ABSTRACT
In the last decade or so, awareness that medical students were often ill-prepared for dealing with terminally ill and dying patients led to the systematic introduction of palliative care, death and dying, and end-of-life care curricula in all US medical schools. Sometimes students meditated on the death of loved ones, usually grandparents or parents, in their poetry. Often these poems are a cry for help. Death is portrayed as the end of a futile struggle and, in many cases, as long overdue. Occasionally students tell a restitution story about the death of a loved one. Students encounter dying patients through hospice programs, and on hospital wards. Students' narrative choices in reflecting on these patients run the gamut from chaos and helplessness to journey, witnessing, and transcendence. In contemplating the dying process, students can concentrate on the patients' sense of being trapped, their helplessness and their hopelessness.
