Most FutureLearn courses run multiple times. Every run of a course has a set start date but you can join it and work through it after it starts. Find out more This course is for people interested in or engaged in matters relating to death, dying, bereavement, palliative and end of life care. This course will be of special interest to those working in healthcare, including physicians, nurses, social workers, and other health and social care professionals. The course will also appeal to practitioners, students, researches, volunteers and policymakers in end of life care, as well as social activists and those working in artistic and cultural media who are working on end of life issues. It is ideal for anybody considering taking The University of Glasgow’s MSc End of Life Studies

Topics Covered

• Defining dying and end of life
• ‘Good’ and ‘bad’ dying
• Hospital care at the end of life
• How communities around the world are creating new ways to deliver palliative care for people with chronic and terminal illnesses – the example of Kerala, in India
• How ‘compassionate communities’ are forming to work alongside service providers to meet the challenges of loneliness, isolation and the experience of ‘social death’ – the example of Clydebank, in Scotland
• Examining the fast growing world-wide interest in the movement known as ‘Death Café’
• Many people want to take direct control over how they die. Where is assisted dying legal and what are its implications – for the meaning of death, the practice of palliative care and the ‘right to choose’?
• Rational suicide – an emerging response to the desire for direct control over the manner of one’s death, especially among older people
• How modern individuals seek to ‘curate’ their dying process and the rituals that follow it