saunders   ¦ HONORARY AWARD 2003

Dame Cicely Saunders
OM DBE FRCP FRCS
 
was born in 1918 and entered St Anne's College, Oxford in 1939 to read Philosophy, Politics and Economics, but, changed course to train as a nurse.
In 1947 she trained as a medical social worker and qualified as a doctor in 1957.

She founded St Christopher's Hospice in 1967 to provide total and active care for patients with incurable diseases. She was its Medical Director until 1985, its Chairman until 2000 and is now President.

Dame Cicely has been an active missionary for the hospice movement. She was Deputy Chairman of the Attendance Allowance Board (1979-85) and was made an Honorary Consultant of St Thomas' Hospital (1985). She is an Honorary Fellow of Newnham College, Cambridge, of the United Medical and Dental Schools and Liverpool John Moores University. The Universities of Yale, London, Glasgow, Cambridge and Oxford have awarded her honorary degrees. She has received the Gold Medal of the Society of Apothecaries of London (1979) and the Gold Medal of the British Medical Association (1987).

In 1989 Dame Cicely was awarded the Order of Merit (OM) by H.M. The Queen; this is the highest honour anyone in Great Britain can receive from the Monarch.

Her publications include: Care of the Dying (1960, 1977), The Management of Terminal Disease (editor) (1978, 1993), Hospice: the living idea (joint editor) (1981), Living with Dying (1983, 1989), Beyond the Horizon (1990), Hospice and Palliative Care (editor) (1990) and various papers on terminal care.
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