ABSTRACT
In this chapter I have attempted to capture my experience of working with patients with a short prognosis in a large inner-city hospital. The work took place outside of a consulting room, either on an open ward or in a single room on a ward at patients’ bedsides. The hospital context is an important factor, as working with the same client group in a hospice might be somewhat different. There would presumably already be some recognition and acceptance of the process of dying and death, whereas in the medical setting of a hospital, death is frequently regarded as failure.
