Historical Notes on the Founding of the Surgical Palliative Care Society

The latter half of the twentieth century witnessed the emergence of the hospice movement as a response to the increasing medicalization of death and the associated suffering. Palliative care, a term coined by the Canadian urologic surgeon Balfour Mount, represents an expansion of hospice philosophy upstream within the health care system extending to the care of hospitalized patients with life-threatening illnesses. This article offers a brief history of the development of surgical palliative care, i.e., palliative care directed specifically toward relief of suffering associated with serious surgical illnesses and culminating in the formation of the Surgical Palliative Care Society.