RALPH NADER once mused to me about what a terrible thing it was that Jack Kevorkian was (at the time) the world’s most famous doctor. He was right. That distinct honor should have belonged to Dame Cecily Saunders, the founder of the modern hospice movement who died last week at age 87 in London at St Christopher’s, the hospice she founded in 1967.

Dame Cicely, as she was known affectionately in England, was a nurse and devout Anglican who was working as a medical social worker in a London hospital in the years immediately following World War II. She met a Jewish immigrant, named David Tasma, who had escaped the Warsaw ghetto, only to lie dying in a London hospital at the age of 40. Tasma was alone in the world and Saunders made a special point to visit with him every day. Their friendship changed our world.