Honoring the Founders of Hospice and Palliative Care
by Jessica Bumgarner, APNP

“You matter because you are you, and you matter to the end of your life. We will do all we can not only to help you die peacefully, but also to live until you die.” – Dame Cicely Saunders

In a world where medicine often focuses on curing, there are few who have reminded us of another sacred calling: caring. Reflecting on the compassionate field of hospice and palliative care, we give heartfelt thanks to the pioneers whose vision reshaped how we approach the end of life—with dignity, comfort, and humanity. Their legacy continues each time a caregiver offers comfort, a hand is held, and dignity is preserved until one’s final breath.

In 1900 in Hackney, England, Cardinal Vaughan, Archbishop of Westminster, and Father Peter Gallwey invited five sisters of Charity to Hackney to help the poor and dying of East London.  The Sisters started by visiting the poor and sick in their homes, infirmaries, and Victoria Park hospital. Convinced a place was needed to provide care to these dying patients, they pursued Cambridge Lodge; although it was sold to an anonymous donor, the property was gifted to the Sisters in 1904 for the care of the dying. St. Joseph’s Hospice was founded in 1905 and remains the oldest hospice in England.

Dame Cicely Saunders’ groundbreaking work in the mid-20th century laid the foundation for the modern hospice movement. Her belief was simple; patients deserve holistic care—addressing not only physical pain but also emotional, social, and spiritual suffering. It was that “simple” belief that transformed medicine’s understanding of what it means to truly heal. Saunders founded St. Christopher’s Hospice in London in 1967, which is widely recognized as the first modern hospice to integrate medical care, pain and symptom management, spiritual and emotional support, research, and teaching. She rejected the idea that “there was nothing more that could be done” for people at the end of their lives. 

Her influence reached far beyond one institution. At St Christopher’s she pioneered what became the global model of palliative care — combining effective pain and symptom control with social, emotional, and spiritual support along with involving family and loved ones, not only the patient. This recognition — that end-of-life care touches not just the individual, but their loved ones and community — helped shift society’s attitude toward death. Under her leadership, hospice became not a place of surrender, but of dignity: a place where pain is relieved, where compassion is offered, and where life, however brief, is honored until the very end.

An equally influential leader was Dr. Elisabeth Kübler-Ross, who is widely regarded as one of the most transformative figures in the development of modern hospice and palliative care. Her work reframed dying not as something to be feared, avoided, or hidden, but as a process that deserves honesty, compassion, and dignity. In 1969, her landmark book On Death and Dying introduced the now famous “Five Stages of Grief”.  This framework opened the door for clinicians to talk about dying, emotions, and anticipatory grief in a way that had never been normalized in medicine. Dr. Kübler-Ross popularized and legitimized hospice care in the United States. Her advocacy paved the way for the first U.S. hospices to open in the 1970s.

In 1974, Dr. Balfour Mount, introduced the term “palliative care” in Canada and integrated these principles into mainstream medicine. In 1987, Dr. Declan Walsh established a palliative medicine program at the Cleveland Clinic Cancer Center, which later expanded to become the first U.S. training site for palliative care and a research fellowship for acute pain, as well as an inpatient palliative care unit. Their early work helped spur the development of palliative care programs across the United States. In 2006, Hospice and Palliative Medicine became a recognized subspecialty in the United States.

Because of their courage, patients and families today have access to care that honors life’s final chapter with peace, respect, and love. We owe deep gratitude to these founders for reminding the world that while medicine cannot always cure, it can always care.