Celebrating Cicely’s Centenary in 2018
22nd February 2018
Although most people in the UK will know someone who has received palliative care, whether in hospital, at home or in a hospice, not everyone is aware of the individual who pioneered this area of medicine and, in doing so, transformed the type of care that people with life-limiting conditions receive. Dame Cicely Saunders was born a century ago, on 22nd June 1918, and over the course of her life undertook a number of roles, as a nurse, medical social worker, doctor and research lead, in order to bring her vision of palliative care to realisation.
St Christopher’s Hospice, which Cicely founded in 1967, is widely recognised as the first place to combine teaching and clinical research, pain and symptom control, and compassionate care. It was here that Cicely was able to develop the approach which was instrumental to the care provided at St Christopher’s; that patients need spiritual, emotional and social support, as well as effective pain relief, at the end of life. This emphasis on the holistic, as well as the physical, needs of patients is a model which has been adopted worldwide and continues to lie at the heart of care for the dying.
In her later years, she set up The Cicely Saunders Foundation (now Cicely Saunders International) to fund research and education in palliative care, in collaboration with King’s College London. This led to the establishment of the Cicely Saunders Institute of Palliative Care, the first purpose-built centre combining research, education and clinical practice.
This year, to mark the centenary of Cicely’s birth and her remarkable contributions to the field of palliative care, the Cicely Saunders Institute is curating a series of events which celebrate her life and showcase the ongoing development of palliative care, both in the UK and internationally. There will be lectures, seminars, workshops and other special events, bringing together the research and clinical practice spearheaded by Cicely over the course of her life.
Join in online
There will be plenty of online activity to engage with over the next 12 months. Please keep an eye on the Cicely Saunders Institute Twitter feed and the hashtag #Cicely100. We will be sharing Cicely’s most iconic quotes (#VoiceofCicely), as well as images from the ‘Light for Cicely’ installation, which was created by artist Caroline McCarthy and features contributions from family, friends and former colleagues (#LightforCicely). Key moments and photographs from Cicely’s life will be shared by Cicely Saunders International on Twitter (#CicelysLegacy). We will also be exploring materials from the archive, including her personal writings, photographs and recordings, on our Instagram account.
If you have a memory or experience of Cicely that you would like to share, please feel free to post on Twitter using the hashtag #Cicely100 or email katie.witcombe@kcl.ac.uk so that we can create an online scrapbook of recollections and personal anecdotes.