Volume 24, Number 1: January 2023

Meet New Lifetime Members

A Wandering Path Led to IAHPC

Dr. Justin Woods
Spokane, Washington, USA

I currently work as a palliative care physician at Sacred Heart Medical Center in Spokane, and have been working in the hospice/palliative medicine field for the past four years. My passion for global health was sparked by being born in Malawi and growing up in multiple countries, which led to studying international rescue and relief in college. While my path has wandered through primary care, addiction medicine, telemedicine, disaster relief, and health policy and management, my current goals are to further global palliative care development and access. 

I have become an IAHPC Advocacy Focal Point to increase the impact of my advocacy for low- and middle-income countries, which is my passion. I realized that advocating further upstream will make progress more likely to happen. I have friends working in countries where morphine is not allowed, like Chad and Sierra Leone, and symptom management is terribly difficult. One friend recently had abdominal surgery, with horrible pain afterwards. You have to have the tools before you can use the tools!

Recent article: Palliative Care’s Role in Austere Medicine

Palliative Care ‘Just Felt Right’

Dr. Neil Nijhawan
Abu Dhabi, United Arab Emirates

An eternal student (BSc, PhD, MBBS, MRCP, CCT, and now MBA candidate), I started my palliative care training in London in 2010. I took some time out of training to return to my childhood home of Trinidad (in the West Indies), where I helped to commission the first hospice and palliative care service within the government health service. I then returned to London to complete my specialty training in palliative care and work as a palliative care consultant at Imperial College Healthcare NHS Trust before relocating to Abu Dhabi in early 2020.

As much as I love medicine, it wasn't until I started training in palliative care that I felt “comfortable in my own skin”—it just felt right. To me, palliative care has the right mix of medicine, humanities, psychology, and people management. 

I was very fortunate to be asked to help set up the palliative care service at a new tertiary hospital within Abu Dhabi: there is a small but growing number of palliative care clinicians here in the UAE. My interests are education, communication skills, and palliative care advocacy. I was very fortunate to meet (Caribbean palliative care pioneer) Dr. Dingle Spence and (IAHPC Executive Director) Liliana De Lima at a meeting in Jamaica and that highlighted the importance of proper advocacy. I have tried to continue this since moving to the UAE. 

Recent articles: A retrospective study, Experiences and Challenges of a New Palliative Care Service in the United Arab Emirates, and a commentary, An Update on the State of Palliative Care Development in the United Arab Emirates.

Delicious! Delicioso! Délicieux! Läckert! Köstlich! ???! ??????!

An Easy, Economical Crowd-Pleaser: Egg Pudding

Submitted by Dr. Sayeda Sharmin Quadir
Dhaka, Bangladesh

I chose this recipe because it is easy to make with ingredients available locally that are not too expensive. Whenever I made egg pudding for a family party or for the hospital program where I work, family members, friends, and colleague have told me they liked it very much. They always say things like, “It is so mouthwatering! Once you taste it, you can’t forget it.” While this dish can serve many, depending on the serving size, it has been known to be completely devoured by just two people!

Egg Pudding
Serves 12-15

Ingredients

• 5 eggs
• 1 cup powdered milk
• 1 cup + 2 tsp. sugar
• 1 cup water

Instructions

1. Mix eggs, milk, water, and sugar in a blender.
2. Put 2 teaspoons of sugar in a 7x7-inch steel bowl and heat it until the sugar caramelizes (turns a light brown colour).
3. Pour the egg mixture on top and tightly cover the bowl.
4. Put this covered bowl into a bigger bowl, adding enough water to reach halfway up the side of the bowl with the egg mixture (a bain marie). Cover the larger bowl.
5. Place it in a gas stove on medium heat and cook for 40 to 45 minutes.
6. Check the mixture by inserting a thin stick. If it comes out sticky but not watery, the pudding is ready.
7. Cool the dish completely.
8. To serve, slide a knife along the edge to loosen the pudding, then flip it upside down into a serving dish. It’s ready to enjoy!

List of Members

A list of individuals who joined, or renewed their membership with, IAHPC during the past month.

Membership renewals

New members

New lifetime memberships

See the full list of IAHPC members

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