St Christopher's Hospice, 1974

Abstract
THE IMPACT of Cicely Saunders, OBE, FRCP, director of St Christopher's Hospice, London (Sydenham), on the care of the dying patient is persuasive. After Dr Saunders had lectured at St Luke's Hospital Center, a Hospice Committee was established at St Luke's to consider the introduction of similar concepts within the framework of a university general hospital. Two members of the committee and I were invited to St Christopher's for an in-depth site visit in order to assist the committee in its deliberations. I believe this report is factually correct, although it reflects my own intense positive involvement with a committee hospice staff. First Impressions Although I arrived with an initial resistance to continual contact with the dying patient, the actual experience was quite different from what I had expected. Instead of a terminal care or "death house" environment with cachectic, narcotized, bedridden, depressed patients, I found an active community of

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