Dr. Balfour Mount, widely recognized as the father of palliative care, passed away last Thursday in the palliative care unit that bears his name at the Royal Victoria Hospital in Montreal.

Dr. Mount was born in Ottawa. He studied medicine at Queen’s University in Ontario, then specialized in urology at McGill University in Montreal and in surgical oncology at the Memorial Sloan Kettering Cancer Center in the United States.

Throughout his career, he was interested in the distress experienced by terminally ill patients. He advocated an approach that went beyond curative care, emphasizing psychological and spiritual needs.

In the 1970s, Dr. Mount traveled to the United Kingdom to learn more about end-of-life care, notably from Dr. Cicely Saunders, who created the hospice movement, which is

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