IAHPC Traveling Scholars' Reports

A report by Tania Pastrana (Germany)

I participated at the VI Latin American Congress of Palliative Care that took place from 15th to 17th March in Curitiba, South Brazil. During the congress, I met more than 700 people from 30 different countries in Latin American, Europe, Africa, Canada and USA who were all interested in this region. We shared knowledge and experiences as well as looked for ways to cooperate while generating new ideas and inspirations. Latin American leaders, such as Eduardo Bruera, Liliana De Lima and Roberto Wenk gave inspiring presentations.

I organized a session titled ATLAS OF PALIATIVE CARE, where the project ATLAS OF PALLITIVE CARE IN LATIN AMERICA was lead by the Latin American Association of Palliative Care (ALCP) and participated in by Roberto Wenk (FEMEBA), Liliana de Lima (IAHPC) and Jorge Eisenchlas (ALCP). The project ATLAS OF PALLITIVE CARE IN LATIN AMERICA is an inter-institutional cooperation between ALCP, IAHPC, EAPC, SECPAL, and University of Navarra.

For this project the collaboration from experts in palliative care in the various countries was absolutely necessary. We were able to speak directly with each other as well as with experts about challenges and benefits of the project. In addition, the interest of our Latin American colleagues in this project generated new interest and projects. This was very motivating.  The collaborators were also impressed by the progress of the project and showed a deep understanding of the method and methodology.

The principal themes of the conference were organizational issues such as legislation, creating new associations, developing new clinical programs and exchanging ideas for an educational curriculum.  All this reflected positively on the future development of palliative care in the region. There was also an important focus on psychosocial aspects, spirituality and the importance of cultural issues.

The models developed in USA and Europe are not transferable to Latin America without some changes. For example, one cultural difference is the importance of family in Latin America. In addition, there are poor financial resources available for programs and a lack of interest from governments. These are just some of the challenges they face. Latin America is looking for its own models of care that will be more appropriate to their reality and several countries are making important steps.

The experience at the Latin American Congress helped me to understand the state of palliative care in Latin America and to identify challenges to the further development of the ATLAS-project. In addition, the network will be very useful for further collaborations which might support the development of more palliative care research in the region.

I thank the IAHPC for this wonderful opportunity!

Tania Pastrana, MD
Aachen, Germany

A report by Avetis Babakhanyan (Armenia)

The 7th World Research Congress of the EAPC was held in the beautiful Norwegian city of Trondheim on 7-9 June. I attended this Congress as an IAHPC Traveling Scholar along with 6 others from developing countries. I am very grateful to IAHPC for providing me with this opportunity to participate in such a high level scientific Congress.

I would like to congratulate the local organizing committee for all that they did and for arranging the performances of The Trondheim Philharmonic Orchestra -- unforgettable. Due to the large number of the presentations that were presented concurrently in 4 halls, I missed some sessions that were important to me. Of course, these kinds of issues are solved through the Congress Proceedings and with the Palliative Medicine Journal that included abstracts of both oral and poster presentations. A DVD (CD) containing the Congress materials (full session recordings) would be an excellent addition.

The topics I chose were - pain, neuropathic pain, symptoms other than pain, research methodology.

I'd like to express my gratitude to Daniela Mosoiu (Romania) who helped me greatly during the Congress and introduced me to many colleagues from UK, France, Latvia, Serbia, Poland, and Spain. I had meaningful conversations with delegates from Australia, Israel, and Turkey. I was honored to have a very pleasant talk with Avril Jackson (UK) who has been devoted to palliative care for decades, and who continues to actively promote palliative care service development worldwide.

One conclusion I came away from the meetings is that the barriers to the effective development of palliative care service are universal; all countries have almost the same difficulties that we encounter in Armenia.

I hope the current projects jointly held in Armenia by the Open Society Foundations-Armenia and WHO will continue.

Again, my thanks to IAHPC for providing me with this great opportunity to improve my knowledge, skills, and links with colleagues.

Avetis Babakhanyan, MD
Armenia.