Cicely Saunders: A Life and Legacy
David Clark
Abstract
Cicely Saunders founded St Christopher’s Hospice in London in 1967 as a centre for teaching, research, and care. Its influence quickly spread around the world. Cicely Saunders — A Life and Legacy shows how she played a crucial role in shaping a new discourse of care at the end of life. From the nihilism of ‘there is nothing more we can do’, medicine and healthcare gradually adopted a more purposeful approach to care in the face of advanced disease and at the end of life. This came to be known as palliative care. This biography links for the first time the ideas and practice of Cicely Saunders ... More
Cicely Saunders founded St Christopher’s Hospice in London in 1967 as a centre for teaching, research, and care. Its influence quickly spread around the world. Cicely Saunders — A Life and Legacy shows how she played a crucial role in shaping a new discourse of care at the end of life. From the nihilism of ‘there is nothing more we can do’, medicine and healthcare gradually adopted a more purposeful approach to care in the face of advanced disease and at the end of life. This came to be known as palliative care. This biography links for the first time the ideas and practice of Cicely Saunders to the spreading global interest in hospice and palliative care. It explores her deep reflection on the nature of suffering at the end of life, the possibilities of a more informed approach to the medical management of pain and other symptoms, and above all the importance of remaining focussed on the personal and spiritual concerns of the individual patient as death approaches. It is a story of a remarkable personal and professional life and of a seismic shift in twentieth-century medical history.
Keywords:
Cicely Saunders,
history of medicine,
biography,
St Christopher’s hospice,
hospice care,
palliative care,
the Hospice Movement
Bibliographic Information
| Print publication date: 2018 |
Print ISBN-13: 9780190637934 |
| Published to Oxford Scholarship Online: June 2018 |
DOI:10.1093/oso/9780190637934.001.0001 |
Authors
Affiliations are at time of print publication.
David Clark, author
Professor and Wellcome Trust Investigator, University of Glasgow, Dumfries Campus, School of Interdisciplinary Studies
More
Less
