This Article  • Full text  • PDF  • Send to a friend  • Save in My Folder  • Save to citation manager  • Permissions  Citing Articles  • Contact me when this article is cited  Related Content  • Similar articles in JAMA  Topic Collections  • End-of-life Care/ Palliative Medicine  • Psychiatry  • Perspectives on Care at the Close of Life  • Alert me on articles by topic

"It Never Really Hit Me . . . Until It Actually Happened"

Amy J. Markowitz, JD; Stephen J. McPhee, MD

JAMA. 2002;288:2741.

	Since this article does not have an abstract, we have provided the first 150 words of the full text and any section headings.

In September 2002, Grace H. Christ, DSW, Karolynn Siegel, PhD, and Adolph E. Christ, MD, DMSc,¹ introduced Robert, a bereaved 14-year-old who had been interviewed 1 year after the death of his mother. The authors advocated that even if physicians do not have direct contact with the children of a dying patient, awareness of, and integration of, the family's needs are hallmarks of competent end-of-life care. Developmental factors shape an adolescent's reactions to a parent's death, whether it is sudden or, as in Robert's case, long expected. Through information and discussion, physicians can help support the adolescent in coping, and the family in preparing for the terminal phase of illness and the death and its aftermath. The authors stressed the importance of acknowledging the intensity of adolescent grief, and of observing the crucial differences between adolescent and adult grief, both in its . . . [Full Text of this Article]

ROBERT