We worked a duty of 12 nights on, two nights off for three months,
with split duties by day, and we had one day off a week from 5 pm the previous day. I was
tired but deeply happy and satisfied. I have never lost touch with my set: the remaining
members still meet regularly.
Invalided out with back trouble, I returned to Oxford in
1944, completed a war degree, had a laminectomy, and became a lady almoner (now known as a
medical social worker) back at St Thomas's.
In March 1948 I
began working as a volunteer nurse once or twice a week in one of the early homes for
"terminal care." St Luke's Hospital had 48 beds for patients with advanced cancer. Here I
met the regular administration of a modified "Brompton cocktail" every four hours. The St
Luke's version omitted the cannabis and, I think, the cocaine. They adjusted the morphine
dose to the patient's need; if more than 60 mg was required the route was changed to
injection. Hyoscine was used with morphine for terminal restlessness.
From 1951 to 1957 I
was a medical student, yet again at St Thomas's. During that time there was a revolution in
the drugs available for control of symptoms. The first phenothiazines, the antidepressants,
the benzodiazepines, the synthetic steroids, and the non-steroidal anti-inflammatory drugs
had all come into use by the time I arrived at St Joseph's Hospice in October 1958. A
clinical research fellowship from the Department of Pharmacology at St Mary's Hospital
Medical School under Professor Harold Stewart enabled me to begin work there to investigate
terminal pain and its relief.
St Joseph's Hospice
St Joseph's Irish Sisters of Charity had welcomed the local
chest physician with the new antituberculosis drugs in the early 1950s and were ready for
further innovations. The two visiting general practitioners were pleased to have help. They
had already begun using chlorpromazine but they were not giving morphine orally or
regularly, relying on injections as required and pethidine by mouth. Oral morphine together
with alcohol and cocaine was introduced with cyclizine as the main antiemetic. The doses
were nearly all as low as I had seen in St Luke's. The therapeutic advances and having the
time to sit and listen to a patient's story, transformed the wards.
Gradually, we began
to tackle the other symptoms. I tried to set up a trial of nepenthe (an oral opioid) with or
without aspirin but found the almost solo clinical care of patients in 45 beds made
completion impossible. Instead, I was able to report to the Royal Society of Medicine in
November 1962 on analysed records of 900 patients showing that "tolerance and addiction are
not problems to us, even with those who stay longest." (1)
Greater confidence
We had by that time begun to use diamorphine. There were no controlled trials of this
drug to be found, only some clinical reports that it had few side effects. We used it for 42
of our first 500 patients, in women with severe nausea and in a few patients with
intolerable feelings of suffocation. By that time we believed that this was the drug of
choice, but I realised two things. Firstly, we were getting better and more confident in all
that we were doing, secondly, that your own enthusiasms must be tested. The later work at St
Christopher's Hospice by Twycross showed that there was no clinically observable difference
between morphine and diamorphine given orally in our setting and with adjuvant treatment.
(2)
During the seven years at St Joseph's between 1958 and
1965 we increased our pharmacopoeia, our patients' activities, their discharges, and
referrals back for radiotherapy. Gautier Smith came occasionally to perform nerve blocks. I
wrote and lectured widely and produced a handout of the drugs in common use at St Joseph's
and at St Christopher's Hospice, which opened in 1967. The handout has been updated,
enlarged, and reproduced widely. It has, of course, been joined by books and pamphlets from
Twycross and others. We now have the Oxford Textbook of Palliative Medicine. The
fundamentals of therapeutics I believe remain as I wrote in 1963:
We believe that there
are a few cardinal rules in the treatment of intractable pain at this stage. First, we have
to make as careful an assessment as possible of the symptoms that trouble the patient. This
is not in order to make a diagnosis and give specific treatment, because that has already
been done, but in order to treat pain and all the other things that can add up to a general
state of misery as a disease in itself.
It soon became clear that each death was as
individual as the life that preceded it and that the whole experience of that life was
reflected in a patient's dying. This led to the concept of "total pain," which was
presented as a complex of physical, emotional, social, and spiritual elements. The whole
experience for a patient includes anxiety, depression, and fear; concern for the family who
will become bereaved; and often a need to find some meaning in the situation, some deeper
reality in which to trust. This became the major emphasis of much lecturing and writing on
subjects such as the nature and management of terminal pain and the family as the unit of
care.(3) (4)
Importance of active total care
It was recognised that
support was needed both before and after a patient's death, particularly in home care, when
the family are the central carers. The World Health Organisation has published the following
definition, "Palliative care is the active total care of patients whose disease is not
responsive to curative treatment. Control of pain, of other symptoms and of psychological,
social and spiritual problems is paramount. The goal of palliative care is achievement of
the best possible quality of life for patients and their families."
(5)
The basic and clinical
researchers, together with many clinicians-doctors, nurses, and many in auxiliary
services-have enlarged our detailed knowledge of physical pain since that was written. The
emphasis on regular giving has been accepted widely and also features as an essential
element in relieving the pain of cancer. It is one of the cardinal principles of the WHO
booklet Cancer Pain Relief, available in many languages and now in a second edition
(6t). Over 33 years later, these basic principles have not changed, although
symptomatic treatment is far more complex and specialists in palliative care have to keep
abreast of developments in all relevant disciplines.
Many therapeutic discoveries of
recent years have been relevant to palliative care. For example, the pharmacological
management of terminal bowel obstruction has been improved with the use of octreotide.
Hypercalcaemia is now identified and treated with bisphosphonates. In the drive to question
received wisdom, investigations continue into the best and appropriate ways of treating
dyspnoea and the problems arising from dehydration (not always symptomatic). Neuropathic
pain is better managed but still needs further work. Looking ahead, I sometimes wonder that
if we are not careful we may see a postantibiotic era. Whatever happens, it will still
matter that we go on listening and that we continue our questioning. Above all, my
experience emphasises that the practice of medicine includes more than specific treatments.
We were the hosts
The advances in pharmacology and the new technologies are not
the whole story. At our preliminary training school we were taught that we were host to our
patients and their visiting families. It was also taken for granted that we would join in
ward prayers morning and evening and carry out "last offices" with reverence and respect.
Life has changed greatly in over 55 years, but people's needs, though expressed differently,
remain beyond the strictly physical. Palliative care physicians are not to be merely
"symptomologists," as Kearney has expressed it.(7)
Now that palliative care is
spreading worldwide it has still, as in the WHO definition, kept a concern for the spiritual
needs of its patients and their families. The whole approach has been based on the
understanding that a person is an indivisible entity, a physical and a spiritual being.
"The only proper response to a person is respect; a way of seeing and listening to each one
in the whole context of their culture and relationships, thereby giving each his or her
intrinsic value " (M Mayne, personal communication). The search for meaning, for something
in which to trust, may be expressed in many ways, direct and indirect, in metaphor or
silence, in gesture or symbol or, perhaps most of all, in art and the unexpected potential
for creativity at the end of life.
Those who
work in palliative care may have to realise that they, too, are being challenged to face
this dimension for themselves. Many, both helper and patient, live in a secularised society
and have no religious language. Some will, of course, still be in touch with their religious
roots and find a familiar practice, liturgy, or sacrament to help their need. Others,
however, will not. For them insensitive suggestions by well meaning practitioners will be
unwelcome. However, if we can come not only in our professional capacity but in our common,
vulnerable humanity there may be no need of words on our part, only of concerned listening.
For those who do not wish to share their deepest needs, the way care is given can reach the
most hidden places. Feelings of fear and guilt may seem inconsolable, but many of us have
sensed that an inner journey has taken place and that a person nearing the end of life has
found peace. Important relationships may be developed or reconciled at this time and a new
sense of self worth develop. A recent study shows how this may happen in late modern social
conditions.(8)
Dame Cicely Saunders today
My personal therapeutic journey has witnessed an extraordinary
growth in drug treatments for pain and other symptoms. The challenge of educating others on
their use remains. However, there has always been a human as well as a professional basis
that is fundamental to the work that we do. Everyone meeting these patients and their
families is challenged to have some awareness of this dimension. Professionals' own search
for meaning can create a climate, as we tried often helplessly to do all those years ago, in
which patients and families can reach out in trust towards what they see as true and find
courage and acceptance of what is happening to them.
Research at St Joseph's and St
Christopher's Hospices was supported by the Sir Halley Stewart Trust and the Department of
Health and Social Security.
St Christopher's
Hospice,
London SE26 6DZ
Cicely Saunders,
chairman
References:
1 Saunders C. The treatment of intractable pain in
terminal cancer. Proceedings of the Royal Society of Medicine 1963;56:195-7.
2 Twycross R. Choice of strong analgesic in terminal cancer care: morphine or
diamorphine? Pain 1977;3:93-104.
3 Saunders C. The challenge of terminal
care. In: Symington T, Carter RL, eds. Scientific foundations of oncology. London:
Heinemann Medical Medical Books Ltd, 1976:673-9.
4 Saunders C. The care of the dying
patient and his family. Contact 1972;38:12-8.
5 World Health
Organisation. Cancer pain relief. Geneva: WHO, 1996.
6 World Health Organisation
Expert Committee. Report. Cancer pain relief and palliative care. Geneva: WHO,
1990:11.
7 Kearney M. Palliative medicine-just another specialty? Palliative
Medicine 1992;6:39-46.
8 Seale C. Heroic death. Sociology
1995;29:597-613.
