End-of-Life Care around the World

Achievements to Date and Challenges Remaining

Bibliographic Data

ID13629049
AuthorsDavid Clark (0000-0002-1090-2361, University of Lancaster, UNITED KINGDOM, corresponding author)
Year2007
Volume56
Issue1
Pages101-110
Publication date2007-09-26
Peer ReviewedYes
Open AccessYes
TypeARTICLE
VenueOMEGA - Journal of Death and Dying (JOURNAL)
Journal identifiersISSN: 0030-2228 • E-ISSN: 1541-3764
PublisherSAGE Publishing (PUBLISHER • US)
DOI10.2190/om.56.1.i
PMID18051023
OpenAlexW2102654746
LanguageEN
Citations received3
References cited14

From the moment her interest in terminal care was awakened, Cicely Saunders was alert to the international dimensions of the subject. Her first patient in the late 1940s was an emigré Polish Jew dying alone and in isolation in a busy London hospital. Her letters from the 1950s onwards show an unquenchable thirst for new knowledge and a span of contacts and communications that was global in its reach. By the early 1960s, she was making fact-finding visits to the United States and Europe. Even before it opened to patients, St Christopher's Hospice was a beacon of inspiration to like-minded colleagues from many countries, eager to see how the model of practice was being operationalized and--more important still--how it could be adapted and modified in other settings. In the later years of her life, Cicely Saunders remained in contact with colleagues all over the world. She wrote introductions to numerous textbooks and collections; recorded interviews that were broadcast at international conferences; harnessed her name and energies to major efforts to promote palliative care globally; and, to the very end, served as a source of inspiration to palliative care activists, policy makers, educators, and researchers. As this special issue of the journal demonstrates so eloquently, that legacy lives on

Grief, Bereavement, and Mental Health · History · Palliative Care and End-of-Life Issues · Patient Dignity and Privacy

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