Last offices: maintaining dignity in death

Caring for a patient at the end of life, and performing last offices for the first time, was an emotional but ultimately rewarding experience for nursing student Richard Porritt
When I started my nursing degree last February, I set myself goals I wanted to achieve by the end of my first year. One of these was to care for a patient at the end of life and perform last offices.
Four weeks into my second placement, which was on a rehabilitation ward for elderly people in a community hospital, I experienced this when I helped to care for a female patient, who I will call Elizabeth.
Elizabeth, who was in her mid-seventies, had breast cancer and had been admitted
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