Former President Jimmy Carter Enters Hospice Care

Bryant High School teachers talk about former President Jimmy Carter and his impact as Carter enters hospice care.

The Carter Center

Jimmy Carter at an August 2015 press conference to discuss his cancer diagnosis. The cancer had spread to his brain from a mass on his liver. He would later beat the cancer.

Catherine Spicer, Staff Writer
March 28, 2023

Saturday Feb. 18, the Carter Center announced that former U.S. President Jimmy Carter will start receiving hospice care-treatment that is typically given at the end of a patient’s life to minimize the pain they experience before they pass. 

At age 98, Carter is the oldest living former president in U.S. history. Carter served as president from 1977-1981, and is most famously known for reopening diplomatic relations with China and working with Habitat for Humanity.

Jimmy Carter shakes hands with Egyptian President Anwar Sadat and Israeli Prime Minister Menachem Begin at the signing of the Egyptian-Israeli Peace Treaty at the White House in 1979. (The Jimmy Carter Library)

According to AP U.S. History teacher Amber Leaton, Carter has a favorable legacy.

“He facilitated the Camp David Accord between Egypt and Israel and SALT II, which limited nuclear weapons,” Leaton said. “He and his wife also founded Habitat for Humanity, which he continued to actively participate in even into his 80s and 90s.”

U.S. History teacher Tammy Brantley agrees with Leaton that Carter had a positive impact and believes he also had an impact outside of politics. Since 1984, Carter and his wife, Rosalynn, have donated their time and resources to Habitat for Humanity by building houses in the U.S. and overseas as part of the Jimmy and Rosalynn Carter Work Project.

“He was probably one of the nicest, genuinely nicest, you know, personable men that has ever served as president,” Brantley said. “[Carter] was an inspiration to people biblically as well as not just you know, his political influence.”

Overall, Leaton believes Carter was an influential person who worked to promote world peace. In 2002, Carter was awarded the Nobel Peace Prize for his efforts to establish peace and improve international relations, as well as his advocacy for human rights.

“I have always respected Jimmy Carter as a person who truly wanted to make the world a better place and was able to put politics aside for the greater good,” Leaton said.

Jimmy Carter and his wife Rosalynn visit children with schistosomiasis in Nasarawa North, Nigeria in 2007. The Carters visited to bring attention to disease prevention. (The Carter Center)

Despite believing Carter to be a good person, Brantley also believes it is hard to judge whether a president’s impact was positive or negative. 

“What I always tell my students is that [with] presidents, it’s hard to evaluate them with a yes or no, black and white, good-bad,” Brantley said.”There are people and some of the things that they do, policies that they do are good and some are not so good, but I think Jimmy Carter was a very good man, so I think that’s a positive.”