Alejandra Palma
Alejandra Palma is currently a Professor in the Department of Internal Medicine, Faculty of Medicine, at the University of Chile in Santiago, Chile. In addition to her academic role, she serves as Head of the Continuous and Palliative Care Section at the University of Chile Clinical Hospital, where she also works as a clinical attending physician.
Since 2005, Dr. Palma has been dedicated to the clinical and academic development of palliative care in her home country, Chile. Between 2005 and 2014, she developed and implemented an academic and clinical palliative care program at the Pontifical Catholic University of Chile. Since 2014, she has led the development of palliative care at the Clinical Hospital of the University of Chile, the largest public university in the country. Dr. Palma has worked closely with other members of the Palliative Care Medical Society of Chile (SMCP) to achieve national recognition of palliative medicine as a subspecialty. As a result of these collective efforts, in 2020 the National Autonomous Corporation for the Certification of Medical Specialties (CONACEM) initiated the official certification of palliative care professionals, with 67 certified medical specialists to date. Dr. Palma currently serves as Chair of CONACEM’s Palliative Medicine Committee.
In the field of research, Dr. Palma has published on a wide range of topics, particularly symptom assessment, communication, decision-making, spirituality, and inpatient palliative care. Her most recent line of research focuses on the role of palliative care in intensive care units, an area of growing interest due to its significant impact at the hospital level. In education, she has developed palliative care courses for undergraduate medical students and has led both theoretical and practical training for residents in multiple specialty programs, including geriatrics, oncology, hematology, internal medicine, and critical care medicine.
Dr. Palma created the University of Chile’s Palliative Care Telecommittee (2016–2021), which served as a precursor to the current national Telecommittee of the SMCP. Through these telecommittees, healthcare professionals in both rural and urban areas have gained free access to continuing education in palliative care. In 2025, the Telecommittee organized a course on the role of palliative care in patients with advanced dementia, in collaboration with the Chilean Geriatrics Society. The course attracted 1,000 registrants and awarded 300 certificates to participants who successfully completed the assessments.
Dr. Palma completed her specialization in internal medicine at the Pontifical Catholic University of Chile (2000–2003) and subsequently undertook a postgraduate palliative care program at the Jules Bordet Institute of the Free University of Brussels, Belgium (2003–2005). She recently earned a master’s degree in bioethics from the University of Barcelona, home to a UNESCO Chair in Bioethics. This training has enabled her to explore aspects of clinical ethics that enrich her professional development and inform her roles as a clinician, educator, and researcher.
Dr. Palma joined IAHPC as a member in 2008 and became part of the IAHPC Board in January 2023.
She enjoys spending time with her husband and four children, swimming, and reading.