2019; Volume 20, No 3, March

Table of Contents

• Message from the Chair and Executive Director Lukas travelled to India for IAPCON 2019, while Liliana went to Panama for the South American launch of the Lancet Report. Plus, meet our new board members!
• Policy and Advocacy IAHPC Advocacy Officer Dr. Katherine I. Pettus reports on the Central America launch of the Lancet Commission report on palliative care, as well as progress on access to controlled medicines and UN drug policies.

  Lanzamiento del reporte de la Comisión Lancet para Centroamerica y el Caribe Latino, Panamá 12-13 de febrero de 2019.

• Featured Article Dr. Lukas Radbruch, Chair of the IAHPC Board, gives a summary of IAPCON 2019, held in Kochi, India, in February.
• Progress Reports (from around the world) Dr. Farzana Kahn from Bangladesh describes how a group effort achieved a recent change to the country’s legislation that allows easier access to medicinal opioids.
• IAHPC Book Reviews
  • Book of the Month Bedside Portraits: On Hospice Time  An enjoyable and insightful collection of stories about living, death and dying.
  • Making Tough Decisions about End-of-Life Care in Dementia  A guidebook for those who care for family and friends with dementia. Very good.
  • Advanced Age Geriatric Care: A Comprehensive Guide  A review of age-related changes in disease manifestations and in the approach to care for non-geriatricians
  • A Life Well Lived, A Death Well Met  Ninety-odd pieces, mostly poetry, reflecting on death, dying and living.
  • Palliative Care Conversations: Clinical and Applied Linguistic Perspectives  An intensive conversation analysis on patient-clinician interactions in the context of palliative medicine.
  • Advancing the Science of Implementation across the Cancer Continuum  Includes a good review of the difficulties integrating palliative care into oncology.
• Media Watch

  Practical Help

  • For the public: The 4-hour Last Aid course to educate all citizens about palliative care is deemed ‘very positive’ for different countries.
  • For patients & caregivers: A study of India’s free Neighbourhood Network in Palliative Care program in the State of Kerala was ‘perceived to have improved’ the lives of both patients and caregivers.
  • For clinicians: Find answers to clinical questions quickly in article databases with recommended search filters.

  Article Abstracts

  • Procedural burden experienced by children with cancer during their terminal hospital admission  Highlights problems and recommendations for children moving from invasive procedures to a terminal diagnosis.
  • Withholding or withdrawing invasive interventions may not accelerate time to death among dying ICU patients  Researchers found no association between removal of invasive interventions and time until death.
  • Guidelines updated for pulmonary arterial hypertension in adults  The latest evidence-based guidelines, from the American College of Chest Physicians.
• Announcements
  • Apply Now for IAHPC Traveling Scholarships to attend the Oceanic PC conference in Australia or the African PC conference in Rwanda. Both take place in September 2019.
  • MOOC: Improving Palliative Care in Care Homes for Older People Available for 5 weeks as of April 1, this massive online course examines how care homes are organized in six European countries and how they can be improved.
  • New in this Month’s IAHPC Calendar of Events
• Resources
  • LivingOutLoud.Life  A free, international digital health tool for young adults with advanced illness, this online platform is by and for adolescents and young adults (AYAs) living with advanced illness. 
  • My Toolkit  An effective Australian resource to bring positive change to workplace behavior among health care professionals yields unexpected results.
  • Cancer Blog, based in Australia, brings you the latest from experts in the fields of cancer research, prevention, and support.

  Reader Recommended

  Find out why reader Ryan C. Costantino relies upon Fast Facts, by the Palliative Care Network of Wisconsin, and enjoys the GeriPal podcast and Palliative Care Chat.

• IAHPC Membership Matters
  • The 19 Traveling Scholars selected for the 16^th EAPC World Congress
  • List of New and Renewing Members
• Donors

  List of Donors

  Find an Event/Add Your Listing to the Calendar of Events

  Find the workshop, seminar, congress, or conference that speaks to you in the IAHPC Calendar of Events, updated monthly, that lists activities of special interest to those who work in palliative care. Or submit an event for consideration; it’s free!

Regards,
Alison Ramsey, Senior Editor
Katherine Pettus, PhD, Advisor
Liliana de Lima, MHA, Executive Director
Danilo Fritzler, Webmaster