- Title Pages
- Disclaimer
- Acknowledgements
- Introduction
- 1 Dying of Cancer
- 2 Should a Patient Know … ?
- 3 When a Patient is Dying
- 4 The Management of Patients in the Terminal Stage
- 5 And From Sudden Death…
- 6 A Patient
- 7 the Care of the Dying
- 8 Terminal Illness
- 9 Working at St. Joseph's Hospice Hackney
- 10 The Treatment of Intractable Pain In Terminal Cancer
- 11 Distress in Dying
- 12 The Depths and the Possible Heights
- 13 The Need for Institutional Care for the Patient with Advanced Cancer
- 14 the Last Stages of Life
- 15 the Last Frontier
- 16 The Management of Terminal Illness
- 17 St. Christopher's Hospice
- 18 Training for the Practice of Clinical Gerontology: The Role of Social Medicine
- 19 A Place to Die
- 20 Dimensions of Death
- 21 The Problem of Euthanasia (Care of the Dying—1)
- 22 Appropriate Treatment, Appropriate Death
- 23 The Philosophy of Terminal Care
- 24 Templeton Prize Speech
- 25 Current Views on Pain Relief and Terminal Care
- 26 Heroin and Morphine In Advanced Cancer
- 27 Pain and Impending Death
- 28 On Dying Well
- 29 Evaluation of Hospice Activities
- 30 The Modern Hospice
- 31 Foreword (<i>Pain: an Exploration</i>)
- 32 Spiritual Pain
- 33 Hospice—a Meeting Place for Religion and Science
- 34 Letter (On Alfred Worcester)
- 35 Voluntary Euthanasia
- 36 Foreword (<i>Mortally Wounded:Stories of Soul Pain, Death, and Healing</i>)
- 37 Why I Welcome TV Cameras at the Death Bed
- 38 Foreword (Good Practices In Palliative Care: A Psychosocial Perspective)
- 39 Origins: International Perspectives, Then and Now
- 40 the Evolution of Palliative Care
- 41 A Voice for the Voiceless
- 42 The Evolution of Palliative Care
- 43 Foreword (Oxford Textbook of Palliative Medicine)
- 44 Introduction (<i>Management of Advanced Disease</i>)
- Index
the Last Stages of Life
the Last Stages of Life
First published in American Journal of Nursing, vol. 65, no. 3 (1965), pp. 70–5.
- Chapter:
- (p.79) 14 the Last Stages of Life
- Source:
- Cicely Saunders
- Author(s):
Cicely Saunders
- Publisher:
- Oxford University Press
In 1965, a paper by Cicely Saunders in the American Journal of Nursing attracted considerable interest and correspondence with the author and gave further impetus to her growing reputation on both sides of the Atlantic. Here, she argued that the last stages of life should not be seen as defeat, but rather as life's fulfillment. Describing the work at St Joseph's as ‘the endless fascination of watching each individual come to terms with his own illness in his own way and come along his own path to life's ending’, the paper sets out the broad principles of the approach. There are numerous short case illustrations and the paper focuses particularly on the nursing aspects of care, especially the taxing responsibility of telling or not telling, concluding with a description of three patients who had died recently at St Joseph's Hospice.
Keywords: nursing, defeat, fulfillment, telling, American Journal of Nursing
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- Title Pages
- Disclaimer
- Acknowledgements
- Introduction
- 1 Dying of Cancer
- 2 Should a Patient Know … ?
- 3 When a Patient is Dying
- 4 The Management of Patients in the Terminal Stage
- 5 And From Sudden Death…
- 6 A Patient
- 7 the Care of the Dying
- 8 Terminal Illness
- 9 Working at St. Joseph's Hospice Hackney
- 10 The Treatment of Intractable Pain In Terminal Cancer
- 11 Distress in Dying
- 12 The Depths and the Possible Heights
- 13 The Need for Institutional Care for the Patient with Advanced Cancer
- 14 the Last Stages of Life
- 15 the Last Frontier
- 16 The Management of Terminal Illness
- 17 St. Christopher's Hospice
- 18 Training for the Practice of Clinical Gerontology: The Role of Social Medicine
- 19 A Place to Die
- 20 Dimensions of Death
- 21 The Problem of Euthanasia (Care of the Dying—1)
- 22 Appropriate Treatment, Appropriate Death
- 23 The Philosophy of Terminal Care
- 24 Templeton Prize Speech
- 25 Current Views on Pain Relief and Terminal Care
- 26 Heroin and Morphine In Advanced Cancer
- 27 Pain and Impending Death
- 28 On Dying Well
- 29 Evaluation of Hospice Activities
- 30 The Modern Hospice
- 31 Foreword (<i>Pain: an Exploration</i>)
- 32 Spiritual Pain
- 33 Hospice—a Meeting Place for Religion and Science
- 34 Letter (On Alfred Worcester)
- 35 Voluntary Euthanasia
- 36 Foreword (<i>Mortally Wounded:Stories of Soul Pain, Death, and Healing</i>)
- 37 Why I Welcome TV Cameras at the Death Bed
- 38 Foreword (Good Practices In Palliative Care: A Psychosocial Perspective)
- 39 Origins: International Perspectives, Then and Now
- 40 the Evolution of Palliative Care
- 41 A Voice for the Voiceless
- 42 The Evolution of Palliative Care
- 43 Foreword (Oxford Textbook of Palliative Medicine)
- 44 Introduction (<i>Management of Advanced Disease</i>)
- Index
