Pediatric end-of-life care

I am writing to congratulate Kathryn E. Roberts and Lori A. Boyle on the success of their educational efforts regarding end-of-life care (EOLC) in the pediatric intensive care unit (PICU). Their article, “End-of-Life Education in the Pediatric Intensive Care Unit” (February 2005: 51–57), highlights an issue too often overlooked in our training as nurses, but is one of the most important we deal with in critical care. Providing exceptional care for a child at the time of death is the most honorable of all nursing skills, yet we are often deficient in our knowledge and comfort with it.

I am a staff nurse in Duke University Medical Center’s busy PICU, where we face many of the same issues as the staff at the Children’s Hospital of Philadelphia. Despite the circumstances, the death of a child in the PICU is always emotionally charged. As providers of healthcare, we must not shy...