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Co-Founder of Hospice Bufffalo Dies

Charlotte Shedd, R.N., M.N., a pioneer in the Hospice movement

April 28, 2007 - One of the early pioneers of the Hospice movement in the United States and the co-founder of Hospice Buffalo died today at age 84.  Charlotte N. Shedd, R.N., M.N., passed away peacefully of end-stage Alzheimer's Disease in the Mary and Ralph C. Wilson, Jr. Hospice Buffalo Inpatient Unit, the unit she helped to establish with the founding of Hospice Buffalo 29 years ago.  Her husband, Donald Shedd, M.D., who had cared for her at home for several years, was with her.

Charlotte Newsom Shedd was an only child born in Oklahoma City, Oklahoma, and raised in Wichita Falls, Texas until age 14 when she moved with her family to Shreveport, Louisiana.  While attending Yale University for her master's degree in nursing, Charlotte and Donald Shedd met and began a life together.  Their passion for hospice care was nurtured by Dame Cicely Saunders, who spoke twice at Yale, the first time in 1962.  Upon Donald Shedd's appointment to Roswell Park Cancer Institute as a head and neck surgeon, Charlotte began the process of creating Hospice in Buffalo.  Working from her dining room table, Charlotte recruited like minded community leaders and health care professionals, including Robert A. Milch, M.D., current medical director of Hospice Buffalo.  With virtually no resources but her own contributions, Charlotte began organizing community awareness meetings, volunteer training sessions, advisory group meetings and later board meetings for Hospice Buffalo.  Her effort brought Hospice into the mainstream of the health care system and helped change public and political response to the needs of the terminally ill.

"I remember a 4-year-old girl, who was dying of cancer, that my husband cared for," Shedd recalled in a previous newspaper interview.  "He did as much as any individual could do for the family, but there was no organized system for helping these people."  In the earliest days, she operated Hospice from the Shedd's Buffalo home.  At that time, she was caring for her husband, her aged mother, her youngest daughter, and at a later time, her 10-year-old grandson who was born in Colombia.

"Through this all, it was Charlotte who shored up and focused the effort of what we were doing," recalled Dr. Milch in an interview from The Early History of Hospice Buffalo. "Indefatigable, undefeatable, Charlotte was Joan at Orleans, Hector at the Bridge, Mother Teresa and Ma Barker all in one.  She expected excellence in concept and delivery and accepted nothing less."

When she retired in 1989, after 11 years as executive director, Shedd described her efforts in this way: "We tried to create a home away from home where staff was there on the patient's terms."

Shedd was a co-founder of the New York State Hospice & Palliative Care Association and was an early member of the governing Board of Directors of the National Hospice & Palliative Care Organization.  She led the hospice movement in Erie County in 1976 when Hospice Buffalo became incorporated.

In 1992, she received the Distinguished Alumna Award from the Yale School of Nursing for her instrumental work on behalf of dying patients and their families.

"We are all so fortunate to have had such a selfless, dedicated person at the helm of the Hospice movement," said William E. Finn, President and CEO of The Center for Hospice & Palliative Care, and the first administrative intern that was hired by Charlotte Shedd in 1984.  "Hospice Buffalo's history is rich with innovative and pioneering initiatives, fundamentally the result of Charlotte Shedd."

Shedd provided many life lessons by example, and remained committed to the Hospice cause long after her retirement.  In 2006, the Hospice Foundation established the "Charlotte and Dr. Donald Shedd Charity Care Endowment Fund" to support the care of Hospice patients and their families who are underinsured or not insured.

In addition to her husband, Charlotte Shedd is survived by four children, Carolyn, David, Ann, and Laura, six grandchildren and 2 great-grandchildren.  A memorial service will be held on Saturday, May 19 at 2:30 p.m. at the Unitarian Universalist Church, corner of Elmwood and West Ferry in Buffalo.

-End-