XI Summary and Analysis

The hospital staff, specifically the doctors, initially show a somewhat hostile resistance to Kubler-Ross's seminars on death and dying. Only a small number of doctors are receptive: those who are older and lived in a time prior to the development of the defense mechanisms we now have against death, younger doctors who attended the seminars regularly, and those whose specialty area is caring for the terminally ill. Author Cicely Saunders, who was once a nurse and now a doctor, confirms most terminal patients know they will die whether or not they are told, and recognizes the importance of a doctor's willingness to sit and listen to a terminally ill patient. Kubler-Ross notes patients who did not request the seminar were often patients of those doctors who understood their needs and were supportive of the seminars. Most doctors, however, did not want...