A qualitative study of student nurses' images of nursing revealed that features related to death were prominent in both entry and experience-mediated images. These features appeared in entry images as part of 'the bad' of nursing and were affirmed in this respect through experience. However, mediated through students' encounters with reality, death-related experiences also acquired characteristics of 'the good'. The 'involvement' entailed in caring for the dying represented a poignant but emotionally draining aspect of students' clinical experiences. Regardless of the degree of accuracy of students' entry images, the 'knowing' that came through experience made adjusting to death-related encounters a particular challenge for students. A clear implication was the need for effective guidance and support to be provided by the system and by individual members of teaching and clinical staff.
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Alice Kiger (1994) studied this question.
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