Maria Cigolini is a palliative medicine physician with a background in general medicine and an Associate Professor of Medicine at the University of Sydney (UniSyd), Australia. She has co-authored and created a wide range of policies, programs, and consensus guidelines in supportive and palliative care.

From 2010 to 2022 she was Clinical Director of the Palliative Care Department at Royal Prince Alfred Hospital (RPAH) in Sydney, responsible for the clinical expansion of the department to its current size, along with the management and administration, research and quality assurance projects within the department, and its associated community and regional outreach services. During her time as clinical head, she achieved training accreditation of all current Royal Australasian College of Physician Palliative Medicine Advance Training positions within RPAH consultative and community services and regional outreach, and for the Sydney Local Health District’s dual-training Renal Supportive Care Service position, for a service she co-designed. 

In addition to lecturing and clinical and project supervision of advanced trainees and UniSyd medical students, she has supervised University of Tasmania Health Administration Masters’ students furthering the development of supportive care services, Examples of Professor Cigolini’s contributions to consensus guidelines in supportive and palliative care include: 

• the Gastroenterological Society of Australia’s Consensus Statement for the Management of Hepatocellular Cancer (for which she represented the Australia and New Zealand Society of Palliative Medicine),
• the Agency for Clinical Innovation Policy’s Clinical Practice Guide for Deactivation of Implantable Cardioverter Defibrillators at End of Life,
• her health district’s Advance Care Planning module, also available to primary health care networks within Sydney, and
• the Australian Government Department of Home Affairs policy for Advance Care Planning for Immigration Detainees.

She also contributes to the Australian Remote Vocational Training Network’s annual workshops in advance care planning and remote provision of palliative care. 

Professor Cigolini’s international involvement includes being a member of the governing council of the International Association of Catholic Bioethicists contributing to colloquia on policy application toward person-centered care and public health matters. She is also an associate member of the World Medical Association, where she has contributed to working groups discussing the impacts of euthanasia and physician-assisted suicide and professional/conscientious objection to the International Code of Medical Ethics and The Venice Declaration of End-of Life-Care, for which she represented the IAHPC. 

Professor Cigolini is a lifetime member of the IAHPC.

She enjoys music, reading, and walking, dinners with family and friends, and time spent with her children and their families. She hopes for a world in which all life is respected and cared for, toward a common good.