DAME CICELY SAUNDERS, MD (1918 - 2005)
Founder, St. Christopher’s Hospice, England, 1967

Dame Cicely Saunders, OM , DBE, FRCP, is credited with founding the modern hospice movement with the opening of St. Christopher’s Hospice in England in 1967. Trained as a nurse and then as a social worker, Dr. Saunders earned her medical degree in 1958 and spent more than fifty years creating both a philosophy and practice of care to humanize the dying experience for patients and their families. Her concept of “total pain,” which embraced physical, social, emotional and spiritual suffering revolutionized the traditional view of suffering in the medical model of end-of-life care. Dr. Saunders’ insistence that hospice care integrate both the heart and the mind has led to a model of clinical care, education and research that has changed the face of dying across the world. In addition to receiving the prestigious Order of the British Empire , Dr. Saunders received numerous awards and honors in recognition of her humanitarian work.

FLORENCE WALD, MN, MS
Founder, First Hospice in the U.S., 1974

Florence Wald, MN, MS, FAAN, is a former Dean of the Yale University School of Nursing and distinguished clinical professor of nursing at Yale University. Wald is a world-renowned leader in nursing research. She holds three degrees from Yale: Master of Nursing, Master of Science and Honorary Doctor of Medical Sciences. She has been awarded the honorary Doctor of Law degree from the University of Bridgeport and the honorary Doctor of Humane Letters from Mt. Holyoke College. She has also been awarded the prestigious title of “Living Legend” by the American Academy of Nursing.

ELISABETH KUBLER-ROSS, MD (1926 - 2004)
Author of the groundbreaking ON DEATH AND DYING, 1969

Elisabeth Kubler-Ross, psychiatrist, was the founder of the Death with Dignity Movement and author of the groundbreaking 1969 book, ON DEATH AND DYING, which continues to be the best-selling book in the field. She earned a place as one of the best-loved and most respected authorities on the subject of dying, death and grief. She wrote  more than  twenty books on the subject, including TO LIVE UNTIL WE SAY GOOD-BYE; ON CHILDREN AND DEATH; AIDS, THE ULTIMATE CHALLENGE; and her autobiography, THE WHEEL OF LIFE. Her books have been translated into more than 25 languages. She was the recipient of more than 29 honorary doctorate degrees. Among the numerous awards she received are The American Academy of Achievement’s Golden Plate Award, the American Academy of Bereavement’s Outstanding Achievement Award in 1993 and the Founder’s Award from the National Hospice Organization in 1993. She was named one of the “One Hundred Most Important Thinkers of the Century” by Time Magazine in 1999. Her classic book, ON DEATH AND DYING, was included among “One Hundred Most Important Books of the Century.”

Tribute to Elisabeth Kubler-Ross, MD by D. Brookes Cowan, PhD. MSW, Chair of the Madison-Deane Initiative (click here)

BALFOUR MOUNT, MD
Founder of Palliative Care in Canada, 1974

Balfour Mount, MD, FRCSPC, is the Founding Director of the Royal Victoria Hospital Palliative Care Service at McGill University. He currently serves as the Eric Flanders Professor of Palliative Medicine at the Royal Victoria Hospital in Montreal, Canada and is the founder and director of the McGill Programs in Integrated Whole Person Care. He received the Order of Canada for his work with the dying. In 2000, he also received the Award of Excellence from the Canadian Hospice Palliative Care Association, and in recognition of his outstanding contribution nationally and internationally to the development of Palliative Care, Dr. Balfour Mount was awarded an honorary doctorate (LLD) from Queen’s University. 

Eric J. Cassell, MD, MACP, is Clinical Professor of Public Health at Weill Medical College of Cornell University in New York, and an attending physician at The New York Presbyterian Hospital. Dr. Cassell has written widely about ethical and moral problems in medicine, the care of the dying and the nature of suffering.

Colin Murray Parkes, MD, OBE, FRCPsych has been a close associate of Dr. Cicely Saunders since the inception of the modern hospice movement. He is a world-renowned scholar in the field of bereavement and has authored many books on loss and grief.