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| author |
Yvette Vieira
| | title |
Holding Space for Death: Interdisciplinary Voices in Medical Aid in Dying
| | abstract |
This dissertation explores the lived experience of interdisciplinary healthcare professionals engaged in the practice of Medical Aid in Dying (MAiD) within New Jersey's emerging Aid-in-Dying Continuum of Care Model (AiD CCM). Drawing on hermeneutic phenomenology, moral experience theory, relational ethics, and interdisciplinary team theory, the study examines how physicians, nurses, social workers, navigators, doulas, and other practitioners collaborate to provide ethically attuned, relationally grounded care at the threshold of death. Through in-depth phenomenological interviews with professionals embedded in the AiD CCM, the research illuminates four central themes: conviction and evolution (the moral and personal motivations that draw practitioners to MAiD); transformation (how meaning-making and emotional labor reshape professional identity); relational practice (the dynamics of empathy, transference, and mutual support); and attunement (the cultivation of interdisciplinary collaboration and community as ethical infrastructure). These findings reveal MAiD as more than a medical procedure—it is a collective moral practice that reclaims dying as a human, relational, and communal event. By situating MAiD within the broader continuum of palliative and hospice care, the dissertation argues that interdisciplinary collaboration restores the relational depth often lost in the medicalization of dying. The AiD CCM offers a replicable framework that integrates clinical precision with ethical presence, ensuring that death is approached not as failure, but as an extension of care. This study contributes to the fields of Medical and Health Humanities, end-of-life ethics, and interdisciplinary care models, offering practical and theoretical guidance for systems seeking to balance legality, compassion, and moral responsibility in contemporary dying. Ultimately, it invites a reimagining of death as a space of shared meaning—one that calls for courage, humility, and the collective act of holding space for death.
| | school |
The Caspersen School of Graduate Studies, Drew University
| | degree |
D.M.H. (2026)
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| advisor |
Merel Visse
Jeanne Kerwin
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| full text | YVieira.pdf |
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