2014; Volume 15, No 12, December
Announcements
IAHPC Recognition Awards 2014
Some years ago, we designated October as Members’ Recognition Month to build awareness and understanding of the vital function that our members play in the advancement of our mission, as well as to formally acknowledge their support. Every year we give two prizes to members in the categories ‘Recognizing loyalty’, for keeping their memberships active, and ‘Increasing membership’ for bringing the highest number of new or renewed members.
We are delighted to introduce this year’s winners, Josephine Muya from Kenya and Dr Mitsuru Sakitani from Japan.
Josephine Wanja Muya – Increasing Membership Award
“What inspires me to encourage people to join the IAHPC is the numerous benefits that members enjoy, such as opportunities for scholarships to pursue higher education in palliative care as well as travelling scholarships to attend palliative care conferences around the world. Members also enjoy access to the palliative care journals available on the IAHPC website. I remain thankful to the IAHPC for this recognition.”
Josephine Wanja Muya, Increasing Membership Award winner, 2014.
Josephine Muya is the Admin Assistant of Kenya Hospices and Palliative Care Association (KEHPCA) in Nairobi, the overarching body that supports all aspects of hospice and palliative care in Kenya. Before joining KEHPCA in 2007 Josephine was a volunteer at the Kenya Cancer Association. She has been instrumental in creating palliative care awareness in Kenya and is actively involved in fundraising from local partners and friends. In November 2014, Josephine was nominated by KEHPCA for the IAHPC Members' Recognition Award for working closely with Dr Zipporah Ali in recruiting the highest number of members to IAHPC in the year.
Josephine holds a Diploma in Business Management from the Kenya Institute of Management and is currently undertaking her Bachelor of Commerce Degree at Daystar University in Nairobi. In her spare time she enjoys socializing, and loves making and decorating greeting cards. She has a gift for making beautiful things that bring a smile to many faces.
Dr Mitsuru Sakitani, MD, PhD – Recognizing Loyalty Award
“I am honored to receive the IAHPC membership recognition prize for 2014 and the scholarship to the EAPC 2015 World Congress in Copenhagen. This greatly encourages my palliative care team in Kobe and my collaborators on medical and philosophical research in Japan. Thank you very much for your warm interest in my difficult research projects isolated in an oriental country (Japan).”
Dr. Mitsuru Sakitani, Recognizing Loyalty Award winner 2014.
Dr. Mitsuru Sakitani (MD, PhD) is Japanese by birth and grew up as a minority Christian (fewer than 0.6% of Japan’s population are Christian). After graduating in medicine, his research interests as a postgraduate and research fellow at Kyoto University were focused on clinical-molecular oncology, palliative care and philosophy-religion. (Kyoto, with its rich cultural heritage of Shintoism, Buddhism and Japanese traditional arts, is the center of Japanese spirituality).
In 1997, Dr. Sakitani founded the Institute for Cross-Cultural Communication (ICCC), in Kobe, Japan, to integrate wide-ranging studies on medical science and the humanities into unified palliative care in a transcultural perspective. He later published eight monographs in Japanese and articles in English, French and German, including molecular oncogenesis of HTLV-1; molecular targeted therapy; holistic transcultural palliative care; psychotherapy for existential distress; comparative studies on Christianity and Buddhism, and genetic and cultural diversity in Japan. His research projects have focused on four axes: oncology and palliative care; Viktor E. Frankl’s logotherapy and palliative care; science and philosophy; and the synthesis of the Occident and the Orient.
Dr Sakitani is director of ICCC, director of the Kobe Yuyunosato Clinic, a member of the Kyoto Society of Philosophy at the Kyoto University, research fellow of the Japan Society of Humanistic Anthropology Association, and a member of the Japanese Society for Palliative Medicine and other palliative care institutions. As such, he devotes most of his time to relief from total pain of his patients with terminal illness.
We are delighted to award Josephine and Mitsuru IAHPC Traveling Scholarships to attend the 2015 World Congress of the European Association for Palliative Care in Copenhagen and wish them well for the future.
Scholarships for Pediatric Pain Master Class, including clinical practicum, for physicians from low- moderate-income countries
Funded by The Foundation of Children's Hospitals and Clinics of Minnesota, the Children's Institute for Pain & Palliative Care (CIPPC) is offering two competitive scholarships to physicians from low and moderate-income countries that are currently working in the field of pediatric pain and/or palliative care. The scholarships are available for Pediatric Pain Master Class, plus a clinical practicum with the Pain and Palliative Care Team Minneapolis, Minnesota, USA, 15-26 June 2015.
Click here for application guidelines. Past Scholars include physicians from Dominican Republic, Malawi, Uruguay, Ghana, Costa Rica, India, Ethiopia, Venezuela, Russia, China, South Africa and Vietnam.
Deadline for applications: 5 January 2015.
Call for 2015 Award Nominations – APOS
APOS (American Psychosocial Oncology Society) is accepting nominations for its 2015 awards, as shown below. These awards will be presented at the World Congress of Psycho-Oncology July 30 – August 1, 2015.
- Holland Distinguished Leadership Award – honors a psychosocial oncology community member for outstanding contribution in practice, education, research and leadership.
- Distinguished Public Service Award is presented to a psychosocial oncology community leader in recognition of outstanding contributions to the field of psychosocial oncology at the national level.
- Outstanding Clinical Care Award – honors outstanding clinical contributions to the field of psychosocial oncology. (Must be actively practicing for minimum five years).
- Outstanding Training and Education Award is presented to a leader who has enhanced the field of psychosocial oncology through the education and training of new investigators and clinicians.
- New Investigator Award is presented to an APOS member for his or her research contributions. (APOS members within five years of completing highest level of training).
For more information, including full eligibility criteria and past recipients, and to download a nomination form, please see our Awards web page. Deadline for nominations: 31 December 2014. Please email APOS Headquarters [email protected] if you have any questions.
Conference on Advance Care Planning – Munich 2015
We would like to invite you to the 5th International Conference on Advance Care Planning and End of Life Care, 9-12 September 2015 at the University of Munich, Germany. Advance care planning (ACP) as a means to promote patient-centered care continues to gain increasing importance in almost all medical fields and care settings, particularly in palliative care. ACP is an innovative, effective approach to ensure that when patients are no longer able to make their own medical decisions their treatment wishes are known and honored. We seek to bring together practitioners, researchers and policy makers from across the world to make ACPEL 2015 a stimulating forum to gain new ideas and insights on how to develop, implement and improve ACP. Click here for more about the conference.
Deadline for abstracts for oral or poster presentations: 15 February 2015. Modest registration fees, with substantially reduced rates for non-academic healthcare professionals and students.
We look forward to welcoming you in Munich!
Georg Marckmann, Jürgen in der Schmitten, Ralf Jox and Katja Kuehlmeyer – for the organizing team.
Contribute to UNGASS 2016
Global palliative care advocates are calling on national and regional hospice and palliative care groups to make a submission to the United Nations (UN) in advance of the UN General Assembly Special Session on drugs to be held in New York in 2016. You can read about why this process is important, who can submit, and how to do this in ehospice international: Add your voice to the call for pain relief ahead of UNGASS 2016.
All interested NGOs, regardless of ECOSOC consultative status, are invited to submit their contributions to the UNGASS preparatory process. You are encouraged to submit anything you deem interesting and of importance to the preparations – be it practical recommendations, activity reports or video footage of your work. Contributions are not limited in length, and should be sent to Ms. Regina Rohrbach at [email protected] with copy to [email protected]. To help the VNGOC keep track of civil society contributions, kindly copy [email protected] as well.