Abstract
Early in the hospice movement, several goals were proposed. One goal was to identify and clarify those aspects of hospice care that were successful. To accomplish this, the people providing the hospice care should be the research focus. Nurses have emerged as essential professionals on the hospice team, and they are at the center of this study.
The primary goal of understanding nurses who provide hospice care is to improve the quality of care given and thus the quality of life for the hospice patient and family. For the current study, focused ethnography was the method used to identify and describe qualities of hospice nurses. The research was conducted in a freestanding, community-based hospice agency. Twelve descriptors emerged that seemed to capture the essence of hospice nurses. The most prominent quality identified was that of "attending or being humanly present with."