Volume 24, Number 1: January 2023

Meet IAHPC’s 10 New Board Members

Kim Adzich, MD, palliative care physician & GP oncologist, Island Health 
Vancouver Island, British Columbia, Canada

“I have a longstanding interest in international health and palliative care, especially in the area of building capacity and education. I plan to assist fellow members to strengthen palliative care capacity-building development of educational resources. I appreciate IAHPC’s multidimensional approach to developing palliative care through advocacy and education at all three levels: local, regional, and global.”

Barry Ashpole, retired communications consultant & educator
Beamsville, Ontario, Canada

“I would like to share my experiences of 35-plus years as an advocate, communications consultant, and educator in the fields of hospice and palliative care in support of the association's advocacy and education initiatives. To help IAHPC further its vision of a world free from health-related suffering, I am eager to enhance strategies to effect change in the illness experience, for example: advancing policy development, educating health care professionals, developing an informed public, etc.”

Maya Jane Bates, MD, Senior Research Associate & Honorary Senior Lecturer,
Lancaster University
Lancaster, England

“The IAHPC is one of the very few organizations supporting and promoting palliative care in low- and middle-income countries. In my numerous interactions with trustees and staff at the association over the years, I have been warmly received and kindly considered. I will contribute a perspective and insights from 20 years of clinical work, teaching, and research in palliative care whilst in Malawi, a low-income country in South Central Africa.”

Maria Cigolini, MD, Senior Staff Specialist in Palliative Medicine, Sydney Local Health District, Royal Prince Alfred Hospital, Camperdown; Clinical Associate Professor of Medicine, University of Sydney
Sydney, Australia

“I will perform advocacy work within the World Medical Association (WMA) by assisting with awareness toward representation and greater presence of IAHPC agendas and associated education around issues/problems/benefits/need/gaps of care awareness. I will also work to preserve the palliative care definition and approach within relevant declarations and iterations of the WMA, especially for nations where palliative care is underrepresented or under duress due to physician-assisted dying legislation. I also plan to learn what advocacy is required at lower-income country levels.”

Veronica Dussel, MD, MPH, Associate Research Scientist at Dana-Farber/Boston Children's Cancer and Blood Disorders Center in Boston, USA; and Chair at Center for Research and Implementation in Palliative Care, Institute for Clinical Effectiveness and Health Policy in Buenos Aires, Argentina

“I can bring to the IAHPC my expertise and rigorous approach to advancing the palliative care field through careful diagnoses, understanding of main barriers, and development of targeted interventions to overcome such barriers, within a collaborative environment and strengthening of clinical, educational, and research networks. My experience includes the position of director of the Latin American End-of-Life Care Pediatrics course; secretary of the Pediatric Palliative Care National Committee of the Argentinian Society of Pediatrics, and member of the Pediatric Palliative Care Latin American research network.

Natalie Greaves, MD, Lecturer in Public Health & coordinator, MPhil/PhD Program in Public Health and Epidemiology, Faculty of Medical Sciences, The University of the West Indies, Cave Hill
Bridgetown, Barbados

“The IAHPC has facilitated or influenced much of the progress seen globally in palliative care education, provision, and advocacy. I want to be an integral part of the team that continues to conceive, create, and implement strategies for accelerating actions to address the untenable levels of unmet suffering and palliative care needs seen globally. I can best help by offering research expertise that helps to generate evidence to inform palliative care/public health policy and advocacy. In particular, as a qualitative lived experiences researcher I can assist by designing work to explore sociocultural and health system factors that might be influencing efficient and sustained organization of health care aimed at alleviating suffering—especially in resource-limited settings.”

Victoria Hewitt, MD, specialist palliative care physician, National Health Service; Curriculum Director & Policy Fellow, Newcastle University 
Newcastle Upon Tyne, England

“My expertise in education puts me in an excellent position to help IAHPC achieve its second objective—a skilled global workforce for palliative care delivery—as I have good working knowledge of technology-enhanced learning in online spaces and a decade of experience of understanding the barriers and enablers for this type of continuous professional development globally. I work with Newcastle University undergraduates, postgraduates, and alumni to create a network of palliative care advocates and to incorporate principles of health care quality improvement into existing teaching. I am particularly interested the role of palliative care in achieving UN Sustainable Development Goals and application of Education for Sustainable Development agenda.

Alejandra Palma, MD, palliative care physician, Palliative and Continuous Care Section, Department of Internal Medicine, Universidad de Chile Clinical Hospital
Santiago, Chile

“As a female physician who has worked in the implementation and development of clinical and academic palliative care programs in Latin America, I believe that my clinical experience and my academic background allow me to contribute in the development of palliative care educational, research, and other related projects. As a current Master's student of ethics and law, there is the possibility of developing collaborative projects related to end-of-life issues that generate conflicts or current clinical challenges, such as professionals’ end-of-life moral distress or proposals for the legalization of assisted dying.”

Stella Mwari Rithara, RN, palliative care tutor, Kenya Medical Training College
Nairobi, Kenya

“I bring a creative approach to solving problems. I can help IAHPC attain its vision of increasing access to palliative care by helping to ensure the training of more health care providers and community health volunteers. I plan to help creating awareness campaigns on the importance of palliative care, and work closely with health management to reach everyone who requires palliative care, for example, those with tuberculosis, diabetes, renal failure, mental health problems, and older persons.”

Hanan Saca-Hazboun, RN, Assistant Professor, Bethlehem University
Bethlehem, Palestine.

“The increase of chronic illness and cancer has had a burden on patients’ quality of life and suffering. In low-income countries, this is seen in several areas where patients do not receive pain management or palliative care. As a trained professional with the capability to speak Arabic and English, I can voice the needs within the societies like these. I strongly believe in the IAHPC’s goal to alleviate health-related suffering through the provision of palliative care: the most essential aspects of health treatment for anyone with a chronic illness or cancer are the mitigation of suffering and its relief.”

These new board members join those already serving on the board: Ebtesam (Sammi) Ahmed, Egypt and USA; Felicia Knaul, USA; Gulnara Kunirova, Kazakhstan; Hibah Osman, Lebanon and USA; Mary Callaway, USA. Lukas Radbruch, Germany, continues as board chair. The board also includes: past chair Roberto Wenk, Argentina; Executive Director ex-officio Liliana De Lima, USA; and Lifetime Board Member and IAHPC cofounder William Farr, USA.

We Have a New Logo!

IAHPC has retired its original, long-serving logo in favor of a version that remains easily recognizable but also meets new requirements decided in a 2019 IAHPC Strategic Meeting. The change is predicated on three main points:

1. When reproduced in a small size, such as for social media, the text of the old logo was not easy to read.
2. The acronym by which we are often known, IAHPC, was not on the logo.
3. The old logo reproduced badly on any color other than white, making it unsuitable for printing on varied materials (such as pens, or T-shirts).

This simpler, more distinctive version solves all of these issues while retaining the IAHPC’s signature globe shape. “It reflects our clarity of vision and global reputation,” notes IAHPC Executive Director Liliana De Lima. “Plus, it is widely recognizable regardless of language, culture, or location.“

Tidbits: News in brief

Pettus Joins PHPCI

IAHPC Senior Research and Partnerships Director, Katherine Pettus, has forged a closer relationship with Public Health Palliative Care International by joining its council as an ex-officio member. The association was founded a decade ago “to communicate the importance of public health ideas and approaches in palliative care at a global level” and “promote practice learning, professional support, and facilitate local and international communication between members around the world in their individual attempts at embedding a public health approach to the practice of palliative care.”  

Upcoming: The IAHPC will reveal the winners of its Recognition Awards in January. Also, the IAHPC Newsletter is preparing a special thematic issue on physician-assisted dying, which will include results from our member survey on the topic.

What’s New in the Calendar

New listings

Access all items in the IAHPC Calendar of Events.

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