Hospice Care Research Papers

Hospice care has been around longer than one may think. It can be traced back as far as medieval times. The word hospice came from the root word ‘hospitality’ and became known as simply ‘hospice’ in the 1800s and more accordingly was used to describe caring for dying patients. In the beginning a hospice was a place for ill or tired travelers to rest. It became what we now know them as after a physician by the name of Dame Cicely Saunders began working with people with terminal illnesses. She created the first modern hospice in 1967, called St. Christopher’s Hospice, in the United Kingdom. After the opening of St. Christopher’s Hospice, a woman by the name of Dr. Elisabeth Kubler-Ross began interviewing over 500 critically ill patients. She went on to write a best-selling book titled “On Death and Dying”. In her book, Dr. Kubler-Ross gave insight to the feelings and stages of someone who is terminally ill. She maintained that these patients should have a choice when it came to their healthcare, such as being cared for at home rather than in a hospital setting, and be able to make their own decisions on their end of life care. …show more content…
Saunders to come speak about hospice care to students. These students and their professors were so inspired by Dr. Saunders ideas they launched a Hospice Movement. This movement was to encourage the nursing students of Yale to focus on the patient, their family, and keeping them involved in the patients’ care. It was one of these students, Florence Wald, that organized a team to open the first hospice care facility of the United States in 1974. It was called Connecticut Hospice located in Branford, Connecticut and is still open to this day. Connecticut Hospice set the standard for all future hospice in America. Others followed and began opening their own homes for hospice care to give patients a sense of home and a place for their families to come