Word: warded
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There is no grimmer duty in a hospital than working in a cancer ward full of dying patients. As custodians of terminal cases, nurses bear particularly heavy emotional burdens. The girls show a tough and cold exterior-an attitude quickly acquired in hospital service. But often it cloaks deep feelings of anger and frustration at their inability to slow the inevitable or at least relieve their patients' pain. The patients, in turn, become even more despondent. Confronted by apparently diffident nurses, they begin to complain that they are lied to about their condition, treated with contempt and given inadequate...
...York Psychiatrist Samuel Klagsbrun, 36, believes that the atmosphere in a death ward can be made at least reasonably tolerable. He tested his thesis in a 21-year demonstration project at Yale New Haven Hospital in Connecticut, where he was consulting psychiatrist in a small cancer-research unit filled with terminal cases. When he arrived, he found the morale of both staff and patients abysmal. The doctors and nurses considered the patients "walking dead"; the patients grumbled constantly about "uncaring" doctors, "unavailable" nurses, and experimental drugs that they thought were being used on them as if they were guinea pigs...
...program to "revolutionize ward culture" had an unmistakable impact. Told to deal more firmly with whimsical requests, which are actually signs of anxiety, the nurses talked bluntly to troublesome patients. "Mrs. Jones," a nurse would say, "you really don't need that bedpan again, do you?" The free-and-easy approach had its understanding and mellow side. Sensing that a patient was particularly troubled, a nurse would ask if she could help, even if her charge had not rung...
...happened, the spirit of open communication in the ward created a new problem: the patients started asking "Am I going to die?" Klagsbrun's recommendation: each patient should be handled in a straightforward manner, but one that he could most easily accept. Often the patient himself provided the clue as to how the question should be answered. When one told Klagsbrun, "Doc, I've never felt better," the psychiatrist knew that the man needed to delude himself about the true nature of his condition and could not cope with the truth. On the other hand, Klagsbrun felt that...
...planning to put together an exhibition of the work of a number of them in the autumn, although Associate Curator Robert Doty does not regard the show as a trend setter. "There's been a continuous stream of this kind of expressionistic art from the Romanesque period on ward," says he. "Look at Goya. Look at Bosch." For that matter, look at Chicago's Ivan Albright, California's Edward Kienholz, or New York's Lucas Samaras...