I walk through the Valley of the Shadow of Death: how art Thou with Me? Considerations of the Religiosity of the Modern Hospice Movement

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2013
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Haverford College. Department of Religion
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Thesis
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eng
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Haverford users only
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Abstract
This thesis will investigate the importance of religion in the structure and mission of hospice programs of the twentieth century. Hospice's reintroduction to the modern health care system resulted from the work of Dr. Cicely Saunders and her monumental progress refocusing attention on the particularities of caring for terminally ill patients. The foundation of St. Christopher's Hospice in London, under Saunders' jurisdiction, marked the initiation of the modern hospice movement, and a reconsideration of the treatment of terminal patients in a health care setting. Saunders demonstrates the complexity of hospice as a plural institution through her anxiety regarding the religious foundation of St. Christopher's hospice. Saunders, through her personal and professional work, develops a nuanced understanding of the meaning of Jesus' death on the cross for the suffering of man; this conception dictates the mission of St. Christopher's hospice, despite its interdenominational character. St. Christopher's hospice explicates a model of care founded strongly in a particular religious conception of the appeasement of suffering. The United States replicated Saunders' reorientation of terminal care in Britain, initiating the first American hospice program of the modern hospice movement. Converse to St. Christopher's model, U.S. hospice programs developed actively devoid of any religious foundation, to better serve a multi-religious cohort of terminal patients. A consideration of these differing models of hospice care ultimately demonstrates that religion is extraneous to the structure and foundation of hospice, barring individual and consistent attention is paid to personal religiosity in the experience of dying.
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