Tribute to Dr Robert Twycross

We join the global palliative care community in remembering and honouring Dr Robert Twycross, whose contributions to the field of palliative care were significant and instrumental to the development of Palliative Care as a specialty globally.

“My first introduction to Robert, as it was for many people, was through his writings. While I knew about Palliative Care, it was through these books and publications that I learnt about it. I was working in Geriatric Medicine, seeing the sad way that elderly people were managed as they were dying. His writings were among the first to teach us how to help our patients to face the end of life in a comfortable way with support from our team.” Dr Anne Merriman, Hospice Africa Uganda

Robert Twycross, a founder member of the International Association for the Study of Pain, Association for Palliative Medicine (UK), had many other pioneering accolades, and his impact reached beyond national and continental borders in the Palliative Care fraternity.

“Over the years I met him on several occasions where he helped us here in Uganda. For instance, back in the day, we sent several of our nurses to Oxford to learn directly from Robert. These included Fazal, Rose, Martha and Rachel. Then, around 2003 when Hospice Africa Uganda commenced the first Diploma in Palliative Medicine that allowed nurses to prescribe morphine, he came out to confer them with the very first diploma. Two of the graduates from that course were from Ethiopia and one of them founded Hospice Ethiopia”, Dr Merriman added.

Many health care professionals who went into the field of Palliative Care will remember him as the authority whose writings were key reference materials in academic circles relating to the field.

Dr Merriman also commented that Dr Twycross had his very first book, “Introduction to Palliative Care” initially published in the UK but later he published it in India, which made it cheaper and available to more people. In her interactions with him, including at a few meetings in Geneva in WHO, he was able to articulate in simple language what medications were really needed for Palliative Care.

Dr. Twycross’ legacy is both to those practising Palliative Care and to those teaching Palliative Care because his books are written in very understandable language, and he made it simple with his tables and pictures. In his later years, every year he has published a formulary for Palliative Care medications which has been very helpful to those of us working in Palliative Care throughout the world.

“I was aware that he had been unwell recently, but it had not been a life-threatening illness, so I was quite shocked when I heard that he had passed. May he rest in peace.

I will always miss him for his availability on the telephone to guide me when I had any problems that I knew he would have the answers to. In that way, he did affect African Palliative Care.

I will miss his kindness and willingness to share his expertise. His wonderful wife and family must be very distressed, may they be comforted.”

She further commented that Dr. Twycross wrote many booklets which were published by the Christian Medical Fellowship, on the ethical issues in Palliative Care, and that his writings against euthanasia have had a profound impact on the debate on euthanasia in the UK and has contributed to the country still not having accepted it.