Message from the Chair
&
Executive Director
Kathleen M. Foley, MD (USA)
Liliana De Lima, MHA (USA)
Dear Readers:
Welcome to the March issue of the IAHPC Newsletter. We have several announcements:
1. IAHPC Recognition Awards:
We are pleased to announce that the selection committees have chosen the following winners of the IAHPC 2005 Awards:
a. Institutional Category: Palliative Care Department, TATA Memorial Hospital( Mumbai , India ). The Department, established in 1996, is under the direction of Mary Ann Muckaden and is affiliated with Maharshtra University of Health Services. TATA Memorial Centre serves as the National Cancer Institute of India and the department treats about 2,000 patients per year. They provide a multi-professional approach at all levels of interaction with the patient and the family who are ultimately the primary care givers.
The challenge is to provide adequate and appropriate care to as many patients and families as possible and to do so with very limited resources for a patient population that has various cultural, religious and socioeconomic characteristics. The department provides educational courses in palliative care aimed at multi professionals in order to promote and disseminate this information and provide quality care to patients all across India.
b. Vittorio Ventafridda Award (Individual Category): Franco De Conno, MD (Italy)
Dr. Franco De Conno is the successor of Professor Vittorio Ventafridda in the complex and demanding role of directing the Pain and Palliative Care Division at the National Cancer Center (NCI) in Milan. He was instrumental in the clinical and administrative growth of the program with the addition of rehabilitation as a major component of the program. In this role, Dr. De Conno was able to maintain the leadership of this prestigious group which in Italy is the most recognized and one of the most productive and successful programs in the world. He has been instrumental in maintaining and increasing the research programs for the division in the areas of opioid analgesia, neuropathic pain, psycho-oncology and communication. Under his leadership, the Pain and Palliative Care Division at the NCI has provided education for hundreds of physicians, nurses and other health care professionals from Italy and around the world.
In the European region, Dr. De Conno was a major force behind the establishment of the European Association for Palliative Care (EAPC) and the organization of its scientific meetings. More recently he was the developer of the EAPC Research Meeting. This meeting has met with spectacular success and it has also become the most prestigious forum for palliative care research methodology and content. Dr De Conno has been a tireless world traveler and teacher in developing countries.
c. University Award winner: The Thomas Palliative Care Program/Virginia Commonwealth University Medical Center (USA)
The Thomas Palliative Care Program within the Virginia Commonwealth University Medical Center is an acute care hospital based program dedicated to pain and symptom management as well as emotional, spiritual and psychological support for patients and their families. As a leading academic center, each year they train hundreds of health care professionals in both the humanistic and medical aspects of palliative care as well as providing monthly 2-day training sessions for teams from other hospitals around the nation on how to create, build, and sustain excellent palliative care programs in their own institutions. Over the course of 3-years, the program will reach over 100 hospitals. The program includes three interwoven components: a dedicated11-bed unit specifically for acute palliative care; a consultation service led by board certified palliative medicine MDs, palliative medicine fellows, a masters-trained clinical nurse specialist; and a pain and symptom management clinic led by a pain specialist. An interdisciplinary team of physicians, nurses, social workers, physical and occupational therapists, chaplains, and a host of volunteers attend to the physical comfort, emotional and psychological health, and social and spiritual needs of patients and their families and friends. The palliative care service cares for over 1500 patients annually.
Congratulations to all of those who have received these well deserved awards and for their outstanding efforts in improving palliative care around the World. We extend our many thanks to the committee members who worked hard at selecting the winners from a large number of applications. Additional information and photos of the 2004 winners are available in our website at
http://www.hospicecare.com/Awards/
2. Meetings and Conferences:
a. Annual Meeting of the American Academy of Hospice and Palliative Medicine (AAHPM) and the Hospice and Palliative Nursing Association (HPNA) in Nashville, Tennessee, USA on February 8-12, 2006. The meeting of AAHPM has been growing in size during the past years and has become an important meeting for physicians, nurses and palliative care workers in the USA and increasingly from other countries as well. In partnership with the Palliative Care Initiative of the Open Society Institute (OSI), IAHPC sponsored a seminar on palliative care education in developing countries at the recent meeting. Panelists invited by IAHPC and OSI included Doctors Cynthia Goh from Singapore, Elizabeth Gwyther from Cape Town, South Africa, Cisio Brandao from Sao Paulo, Brazil and Penka Kolchakova from Plovdiv, Bulgaria. In addition to the session, IAHPC had a booth in the exhibit hall. This issue of the Newsletter includes photos of the booth, our speakers and our Chair, Kathy Foley.
Click photo to view larger image |
| |
Liliana De Lima and Kathy Foley visiting with attendees at the IAHPC booth |
|
| Speakers to the IAHPC/OSI session in the AAHPM Meeting
Front Row: Doctors Cynthia Goh (Singapore); Liz Gwyther (South Africa); Penka Kolchakova (Bulgaria); and our Chair, Kathy Foley
Back row: Liliana De Lima from IAHPC and Dr. Cisio Brandao (Brasil) |
b. Third Congress of the Latin America Association for Palliative Care (ALCP) At the end of this month we will be in Isla Margarita, Venezuela participating in the Latin American Congress of Palliative Care. We awarded two Traveling Scholarship to palliative care workers from Latin America - Ms. Estela Jaime, volunteer coordinator, Programa de Cuidados Paliativos Fundacion FEMEBA, Argentina and Ms Marlene Goyburu, a nurse with the Palliative Care Program, National Cancer Institute, Peru. We will have a booth in the exhibit hall and will participate in several presentations on the development of palliative care in Latin America.
3. Addition to our Website:
We have totally redesigned our Book and Video shop in our website under the guidance and supervision of our wonderful webmaster Anne Laidlaw. We invite you to browse this new section and buy your palliative care books from us. A percentage of the sales will be donated to IAHPC by the Amazon Store. While the books do not cost more when purchased from within our site , doing so makes it possible for you to help us support the development of hospice and palliative care around the world.
4. IAHPC Faculty Development Program:
We are pleased to announce that IAHPC has awarded a Faculty Development grant to West China Fourth Hospital of Sichuan University in Chengdu, Sichuan Province in China. The teaching position will be held by Dr. Jinxiang Li. The mentor and supervisor of this program on behalf of IAHPC will be Dr. KS Chan ( Hong Kong ) who is also an IAHPC Board member. Sichuan University will provide palliative care teaching in the undergraduate and graduate levels. There is currently a palliative care unit in the hospital that provides care to 400 patients per year and has an inpatient facility of 25 beds. We are very glad to be able to sponsor Sichuan University and Dr. Li to this position and look forward to the benefits and impact this award will have on the improvement of palliative care education in China. This issue includes some pictures of Dr. Li and the palliative care unit staff members.
Click photo to view larger image |
|
  |
|
Until next month,
Kathy Foley, MD
Chair, Board of Directors
Liliana De Lima, MHA
Executive Director
|
