John Mark Hinton

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John Mark Hinton was a pivotal figure in psychiatry and palliative care. He attended school at Christ’s Hospital, Horsham, and qualified at King’s College Hospital in 1949. During his houseman year at King’s, he met a ward sister, Pat, whom he married in 1950. After national service with the Royal Army Medical Corps in Sierra Leone, he returned to London, and, after a period of general medicine and neurology, he chose a psychiatric career path, making a career defining move to the Maudsley Hospital in 1955. While there he discovered that little research had been done to understand the emotional experiences of dying people. He sought to explore this previously hidden world.

His groundbreaking research challenged the then prevailing culture of breezy medical reassurance that “You’ll be fine,” which so many dying people knew to be untrue. He interviewed dying patients and sought to understand their experiences. His work identified the physical and mental distress of patients dying on the wards of a London teaching hospital. Crucially, he found that dying patients expressed gratitude for the opportunity to talk openly about their prognosis. This early work highlighted the care of the dying among a wider audience and was a catalyst for further research into the subject within mainstream medicine. His book, Dying, was first published in 1967. John met and worked with Dame Cicely Saunders. His work complemented hers, and he continued to work with St Christopher’s Hospice throughout his career, researching the needs—and attitudes to home care—of dying patients and their families, and supporting staff in their work.

John was appointed professor of psychiatry at the Middlesex Hospital in 1966. In addition to teaching and patient care he contributed much to the body of evidence about the experiences of dying patients. He found that many doctors continued to be either invariably optimistic or reticent regarding prognosis. His research showed that this was associated with a higher incidence of depression and anxiety among dying patients. Conversely, he found that patients given the opportunity to discuss their prognosis with humanity and candour experienced less psychological distress. These principles, which now seem so obvious to us, were novel and challenging at the time. In his later years, John derived great satisfaction from seeing palliative care recognised as a medical specialism in Britain.

Retirement allowed John more time to enjoy quiet hobbies of ornithology, tending to his garden and orchard, and enjoying the rural wildlife of Dorset, while retaining a keen interest in medicine, patient care, and the hospice movement. As an individual he was warm, humane, modest, and full of wisdom. He leaves his wife, Pat; two children; and two grandchildren. He also leaves a lasting legacy—to palliative care and to the profession as a whole.