Death and the Pediatric House Officer Revisited

Thirty-six third-year pediatric residents at four Western university training programs were interviewed individually and retrospectively about the magnitude of their clinical experience in managing the treatment of chronically ill and dying children, as well as the psychosocial educational curriculum of their training program as it pertained to these experiences. The residents managed an average of 35 dying children during their first 2 1/2 years of pediatric residency. They imparted the news of a potentially fatal disease to an average of 33 families during this same time span. There was a disparity between the magnitude of the clinical experience and the time and emphasis on these issues in the residency curriculum. The implications of these findings for an improved educational curriculum in the psychosocial care of dying children are discussed.