McCrery & Harra Funeral Home

Oct. 8, 2012--In a PBS documentary called The Undertaking, poet and funeral director Tom Lynch says that we have become estranged about death and the dead. Later in the show, he says, “While the dead don’t care, the dead matter.”Cynthia Diefenbeck wants to make sure that her nursing students at the University of Delaware don’t become estranged about death and the dead, and she wants them to know that the dead do indeed matter. So the requirements for her senior-level course, Care of Dying Patients and their Families, include watching The Undertaking and touring a local funeral home. Afterwards, they’re asked to comment on the experience in a forum on the course Sakai site. From graduates, faculty As it neared time for the processional to open the University of Delaware Commencement ceremonies, graduating students and faculty members shared their feelings about what the event means to them. Doctoral hooding It was a day of triumph, cheers and collective relief as more than 160 students from 21 nations participated in the University of Delaware's Doctoral Hooding Convocation held Friday morning on The Green. “One of the elements that’s underrepresented in health care provider curriculums across the country is care of dying patients and all that follows,” says Diefenbeck, assistant professor in the School of Nursing. “As a society, we have outsourced the care of the dying and the dead, effectively distancing ourselves from the process. Death is the new taboo. As health care professionals, we’re busy fighting disease and often feel defeated when it takes its inevitable toll. I think it’s good for students to confront their own fears and apprehensions about dying to become more effective professionals.”The class tour is provided courtesy of Rick Harra, a 1980 graduate of UD and owner of McCrery and Harra Funeral Homes and Crematory in Wilmington, Del.Harra, whose wife, Amy, holds a nursing degree from UD, agrees with ...