It’s just under a month before St Christopher’s commemorates 20 years since the death of Dame Cicely Saunders with due attention to all she offered to people practicing today and the opportunities available to practitioners, policy makers, academics and others to build on her foundations.
In our acknowledgement of her life and work, St Christopher’s plans a two-day event on the 9th and 10th July 2025 focused on the notion of total pain and its fit with contemporary suffering. Entitled “What is to become of me?” the event comprises a conference and masterclass. Participants can join on line or in person and can attend one or both days, reflective of their role and interest.
The conference is exciting – addressing all important contemporary issues related to global suffering, different cultural experiences, inequalities, assisted dying and the opportunities for communities to act in response. The programme sees speakers that draw on lived experience, the arts, academic rigour and clinical practice to explore suffering in today’s world and how it is best addressed. We are delighted to welcome global players – Dr Christian Ntizimira, Professor Libby Sallnow, Dr Joe Wood and others. We are also giving space to those who are experts by experience who will speak from a personal perspective
Then the masterclass on Day 2 drills down into how clinicians respond to total pain, their assets and responsibilities in this regard. The half day programme draws on real- life case studies, the insights of clinician’s Dr Ros Taylor and Professor Justin Sanders and other experts who can shed light on this important subject and how it is best attended to at the bedside.
Attendees will be invited to contribute to the conference through a reflexive journal; capturing thoughts, impressions, questions and actions. These will be drawn on to write a paper for publication marking the conference.
Our reflections as we look back, then forward, is that we can’t afford to ignore the seminal thinking of pioneers like Dr Saunders who listened hard to her patients and others close to them in her consideration of a compassionate and holistic response.
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https://www.stchristophers.org.uk/course/what-is-to-become-of-me
https://www.stchristophers.org.uk
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