Patient Hand Off to Eternity

Over the last few weeks of teaching I have encountered two repeating themes, patient hand off and end of life issues. The Joint Commission (the accrediting body for hospitals) has put a lot of emphasis on patient hand off recently in an attempt to improve continuity of care for patients during the transition between care providers. I have been thinking of ways to discuss this with my students and provide them opportunities to practice patient reports.
A few weeks ago I found myself standing with a student at the bedside of a patient as he passed. Only days later one of my students found herself caring for an extremely ill developmentally delayed young man who was on deaths door. She did a wonderful job providing competent and compassionate care for the boy but unfortunately he died just a few days later.
I fell asleep Monday night reflecting on the last weeks events and wondering how best to respond to the students difficult questions about death. I awoke at 2:30 am from a very vivid dream. One of my junior students was with me at work in the ICU. We where standing at the foot of that same young man's bed. We had come to the place where we could do no more for this boy. We remained at his bedside as he took his last breath. Then we did something very strange, we clapped. It was a long hard fight coming to a gracious end. As we where clapping the boy took flight right out of the bed. I know; odd, cheesy, disturbing, call it what you will...
After thinking about it for a bit I finally realized what it was all about. As nurses we naturally desire to cure our patients, to make them well. We often take on too much responsibility for them, forgetting that in perspective we really have little offer them. While we must carry out our duties as nurses, we must also remember to daily "hand off" our patients to The Great Physician. Our job is to help help set the stage for God's grace in the forms (likely and unlikely) in which it manifests.