ABSTRACT
The experience of death and dying is very different in the 21st century than it was in the 19th. A number of societal changes in the latter part of the 19th and early part of the 20th centuries served to remove contact with the dying and the dead from everyday experience. This article examines four of these changes: 1) falling death rates, 2) the rise of hospitals, 3) the rise of funeral directing as a profession, and 4) the rural cemetery movement. It is proposed that these changes produced an unjustified optimism with regard to the prolongation of life.
Subject(s)
Attitude to Death , Grief , Hospice Care/trends , Longevity , Mortality/trends , Population Dynamics , History, 19th Century , History, 20th Century , History, 21st Century , Hospice Care/history , HumansABSTRACT
Health services professionals are confronting the challenge of maintaining and improving competence over the course of lengthy careers in diverse practice specialties. This article reviews the efforts of a selection of health care professions to ensure lifetime competence and reviews some of the challenges encountered in these efforts. Although each profession has its own issues, significant generic questions are common to all.
