Facing Death: The Process of Dying

Facing Death
Student's name
Institutional affiliation
Course code and name
Instructor's name
Date
Facing Death
A. Discuss Glaser and Strauss's four awareness contexts. Which do you think most often exists in a medical setting with dying patients?
According to Glaser, the various contexts affect all aspects of the interaction, including form, content, and process. In the different awareness contexts, different conversational norms can emerge. These conversational norms stem from cultural differences and the relationship between interactants. In open awareness, the interactants know one another's presence but not the relationship that ties them together. In open awareness, interactants are aware of one another as individuals (Pereira, Ferreira & Martins, 2018). Both know and realize that the other exists. In closed awareness, interactants are also aware of each other's presence, but they know their relationship. Unlike in open awareness, however, they do not realize this knowledge. This means that these individuals understand that they both know something they should not know. In closed awareness, they are aware of and try to hide their relationship. In mutual pretense awareness, interactants are also aware of one another and realize that the other is aware of their relationship. As a result, they must both pretend that they are unaware of the other's true nature or identity. 
In suspicion awareness, interactants are not only aware of one another, but it seems that the person being interacted with is knowledgeable about the relationship between them. In other words, the person being interacted with acts as though he or she knows about the conversational relationship. The context that exists with dying patients is suspicion awareness because doctors and patients openly share knowledge of the relationship without necessarily realizing they are doing so.
B. Based on the discussions in the textbook, what is considered to be an "appropriate death"?
An appropriate death is the type of death that an individual would choose if they were allowed to choose their death. In such a scenario, the person would consider their beliefs and preferences regarding the context of death. This type of death would be in a p...