Celebrating the Impact of Women at Alive!

Published on March 28, 2022

March is Women’s History Month, and the theme for 2022 is “Providing Healing, Promoting Hope.” This theme recognizes the many ways in which women have provided healing and hope to humanity for countless generations.

At Alive, the legacies of many women have made our work possible. Two of these women are Dame Cicely Saunders, the founder of modern hospice care, and Lynn Barton, a co-founder of Alive, which was the third hospice in the nation.

Dame Cicely Saunders

Cicely Saunders founded the first modern hospice and was mostly responsible for establishing the discipline and the culture of palliative care. She knew that dying people need dignity, compassion, and respect. She introduced pain management as a core component of this care and insisted on rigorous scientific methodology in the testing of treatments.

She founded the first hospice, St Christopher’s Hospice in southwest London, in 1967. It is now one of many but remains a leader in the field and has been imitated all over the world. Dame Cicely Saunders raised the funds for St. Christopher’s and contributed some of her own money. Read more.

Lynn Barton

Lynn Barton, a psychiatrist and social worker, is a co-founder of Alive Hospice, which was established in 1975 and is the third hospice in the nation. While she may be best known for this achievement, her community contributions go far beyond building a single institution. She has been active in her Jewish community, alongside her husband Dr. Barton, and in the fields of social work and psychiatry, professionally and as a volunteer.

Barton helped to introduce mediation in Nashville and Tennessee. She co-founded and served as the first president for the Nashville Area Association of Family Mediators and the Mediation Association of Tennessee. Read more about her legacy in her own words.