I very much enjoyed reading David Clark’s biography of Cicely Saunders. It is eminently readable despite being published by an academic press and should appeal to all professionals who work with the dying and a wider public wanting to find out more about this complex, driven and inspirational woman. On a personal note there were… Continue reading
What does a mother say to her six year old when asked the question no mother wants to hear? How do parents begin to tell their children that their mother has an illness that is life-limiting? Where do parents get help, support and guidance when they are diagnosed with an illness that is potentially life-limiting?… Continue reading
One of the most fundamental ways we show love and connection is through touch. This behaviour is so central to our understanding of what it means to be in relationship with another person that visual representations of touch have become one of the most common visual forms of ‘shorthand’ to indicate compassionate caring, including at… Continue reading
I recall learning of Cicely Saunders’ death in July 2005. It was morning in the Pacific Northwest and I was planning my day of home visits with hospice patients and families. I had greatly admired the woman who created and embodied an approach to care for dying that acknowledged the whole person as they were… Continue reading
One of the greatest challenges facing the NHS, in this its 70th anniversary year, is the care of ageing and increasingly frail older people. End of life care is not something that we as doctors seem to want to talk about, which means that when patients are admitted as an emergency to hospital the default… Continue reading
Kerala’s community model for palliative care has sustained attention in global palliative care discourse, as an alternative, resource-effective form of organizing. What distinguishes the community model from professional-centric models such as hospices and hospitals, is that the community volunteers serve as the anchor in coordinating ‘total-care’ – i.e., medical, social, financial support and rehabilitation –… Continue reading
One of Dame Cicely Saunders’ most enduring legacies is the importance of being present, of witnessing, at the end of life. Academic witnessing at the margins of life and death can require balancing an intense intimacy with simultaneously gaining enough distance to ‘see’ significant or representative broader concepts. What does this mean for us as… Continue reading
Suffering and pain present both practical and theoretical problems. This might be surprising. Having long faced the problem of pain, we might have expected it, by now, to be solved. Pain treatment, however, remains woefully inadequate. Chronic pain is not only often incurable and difficult to manage, it is proliferating. Pain treatment and management are… Continue reading
