Austin Kutscher

Bringing together the views of numerous distinguished scholars, Children and Death investigates the child's concept of death from both academic and clinical points of view. The contributors have aimed at developing practical guidelines for a multidisciplinary approach to the care and support of the dying child, the child's family unit, and staff who work with dying children. The findings presented here are also applicable to care of children with life-threatening illness. Topics discussed include: children's concepts of death; emotional impact of disease; perspectives on children's death and dying; and coping with a child's death.

The essays in this volume stress the legitimacy and importance of the role of administering comfort and reassurance to the terminally ill. This book is a practical guide for caring for the dying and those they leave behind, written especially for the clergy. The book is divided into three sections: an overview of the pastoral role; death and dying; and loss and grief. Among the topics covered are community resources, interdisciplinary care skills; education and research; working with health care professionals; loss as an experience in living; family issues in coping with change and loss resulting from surgery and chronic illness; and issues and strategies in managing anticipatory grief and bereavement.

Aspects of cancer and cancer therapies; long-term adjustments of renal donors and recipients; community life (including support facilities and home dialysis); medical aspects of End Stage Renal Disease (ESRD); psychiatric disturbances; public policy issues; the role of the doctor, staff, and society, sexuality and loss of sexual function, surgical aspects; and anticipatory grief, acute grief, and bereavement are all discussed in this book for caregivers working with ESRD patients.