Page 110 - KNJIGA SAŽETAKA

INOVACIJE I IZAZOVI U OBRAZOVANJU I SESTRINSKOJ SKRBI - KNJIGA SAŽETAKA

Medics in „Death Cafe“

Various life events or our own reflections can make us sensitive to issues of death and dying.
Through the "Death Cafe", the goal is to reduce the fear of death and help each other to make
the best use of our (final) lives. The Swiss sociologist and anthropologist Bernart Cretataza
came up with the idea of a cafe where a conversation about death is held over tea and cakes,
which has become a "social franchise". Cafes are active all over the world, for example in
Australia, USA, Great Britain, China, and in Croatia there is one and only one in Koprivnica.It
is conducted by psychotherapist Dijana Mateša every few months for interested citizens, but
also as a project activity at Koprivnica High School for final grade students, directed by a
general care nurse technician alongside the subject teacher. The goal of the project is to
encourage students to talk about death and dying and to guide them on how they can help when
faced with difficult topics. During their high school education, sometimes already in the first
days of professional exercises, students encounter dying and the death of patients, and often
have the experience of the death of their loved ones. The tendency to think that death is part of
the professional work of a nurse and that it is taken for granted ignores the need to talk with
students about death, how to deal with it in their professional and personal lives. Surveys and
evaluations after the cafes show that they absolutely have a great need to talk about how to help
themselves when a patient dies during or just after their care, how to deal with grief after the
death of a patient or a person close to them, what to say to the person who is grieving, , is there
life after death...They also consider it necessary to continuously implement Death Cafes for
students of medical schools, as well as to continue with this later during professional work,
because in hospitals behind the uniforms are people who need help and support. They can be
strong, professional, but at the same time they are only human. This kind of project enables
students to accept death as an integral part of life, to nurture life, but also to become aware of
their spiritual needs and develop through them.

Key words: „Death Cafe“, students, support

110