| John Fryer |
 John Fryer was born in the late 1930s and grew up on a small farm in Kentucky. John Fryer went to medical school at Vanderbilt
University in Nashville, but it was during his internship at Ohio State University in the haematology/oncology service that
he began to meet dying patients, and through talking to them decided to specialise in psychiatry. John Fryer finally moved
to Philadelphia in 1964 to complete his residency, and became a Fellow at Temple University in 1967. Here, he was asked to
lead research into professional responses to death. His own developing interest in this area brought him into contact with
others with similar interests, including those seeking to develop hospices. Thus John Fryer inaugurated the group Ars Moriendi
in 1970 as a forum to bring together those interested in the field of death, dying and bereavement. In 1974, this group became
the International Work Group on Death, Dying and Bereavement at a meeting in Columbia, Maryland. John Fryer first heard Cicely
Saunders speak at Yale in 1972, and contact continued through Ars Moriendi and the International Work Group. John Fryer visited
St Christopher's in 1978, in 1980 was Director of Studies at St Christopher's Study Centre, and continued visiting the hospice
until 1988. The interview also explores John Fryer's other interests: alcoholism and addiction, where his interest in social
psychiatry and therapeutic communities is discussed; and AIDS, where he talks of the work of the London Lighthouse, Mildmay
Hospital, and death and sexuality. John Fryer died February 2003.
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| Interview conducted by Neil Small, 26 February 1996 |
| Interview Duration: 1 hour, 31 minutes |
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