Cicely Saunders - Medical Ethics

Medical Ethics

Dame Cicely Saunders was instrumental in the history of UK medical ethics. She was an advisor to Andrew Mephem whose report led the Rev. Edward Shotter to set up the London Medical Group, a forerunner of the Society for the Study of Medical Ethics later the Institute of Medical Ethics. She gave one of the first LMG lectures on the subject of pain developing the talk into 'The nature and Management of Terminal pain' by 1972. This was went on to be one of the most often repeated and requested lectures of the LMG and other such Medical Groups that sprung up around Great Britain where it was often given as their inaugural lecture. Her talk on the care of the dying patient was printed by the LMG in its series 'Documentation in Medical Ethics, a forerunner of the Journal of Medical Ethics.