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Journal of Palliative Care & Medicine | ISSN: 2165-7386 | Volume 8
August 27-28, 2018 | Boston, USA
4
th
International Conference on
Palliative Care, Medicine and Hospice Nursing
Good death and subjetctivity: Governmentality analysis in palliative care
Keyla C Montenegro
University of the West of Scotland, United Kingdom
T
he study is seeking to explore the dying process as a phenomenon in which relations of power occur in the form of governance
of conduct in palliative care settings in Brasilia/Brazil. The findings revealed a real concern from both practitioners and non-
practitioners about the quality of death. It became evident that quality of death is a common objective in palliative care practice,
but significant differences were found regarding what quality of death means. Analysis of discourse revealed that normative ideas
of what a good death is and how to obtain it through palliative care conflicted directly with someone who understood a good death
differently. With that said, good death became a contested space between two different cultures.The palliative care practitioners that
participated in this study showed that there are tendencies to achieve the best quality of death possible. It also showed a normative
narrative of a good death based on the Western palliative care movement. The palliative care narrative of a good death has established
a constricted image of what a good death should be transforming it into not only a norm but also in the ultimate objective of palliative
care practitioners. We then concluded that the term ‘good death’ is functioning as a rhetorical device used by practitioners to conduct
the patients and their families to achieve a certain way of death.
keyla.montenegro@uws.ac.ukJ Palliat Care Med 2018, Volume 8
DOI: 10.4172/2165-7386-C3-021