Traveling Scholars Program Report
Eve Namisango
Travel date: May 23, 2018
Name of Meeting/Event/Activity: 10th World Research Congress of the EAPC
Origin: Kampala, Uganda / Destination: Bern, Switzerland
Photos
Eve Namisango and Victorina Ludovick at Eve's poster presentation How was this meeting/activity helpful to you?
The EAPC 2018 was a fascinating event. I will start by saying that my oral presentation was well received, and this gave the encouragement to write up a full paper for publication. Through the questions from audience and I gathered very useful comments for further development of my manuscript. I plan to submit my paper for peer review later this 2018. Secondly, I used this as a platform to take a comprehensive a snap shot of the advances in research and versatile methodological approaches. I attended several methodology specific workshops, for example, the one best practices for conducting in qualitative research. I got to know about the recent recommendations for protocol development and recommendations for sample size estimation. I also was privileged to meet a senior Dr. Steve Norris a board member the Palliative Care Network (PCN) https://www.facebook.com/PalliativeCareNetwork/. We had an opportunity to discuss the African Palliative Care's research activities, initiatives, and progress in made in developing the evidence for palliative care the region. We also discussed our current challenges and priorities. My team won a new business partner on this frontier and we plan to more with PCN to identify partners for collaboration and explore more opportunities for disseminating our work to improve on information access.
How will you new knowledge & acquired skills help in furthering your work in hospice and palliative care in your program/city/ or country?
Lack of clarity on standard practices for qualitative research methods has been a challenge for a while. We used the qualitative research workshop session to discuss how best one can work this and we received a lot of input from the leading experts in this field. For example, we got good guidance on how to address the sample size issue and best practices for protocol development. I feel more prepared to design, implement and publish from qualitative studies and this has been useful for me in making final touches on my qualitative manuscript. I am already using some of the methodological recommendations for undertaking research in palliative care. I learnt more about networking and we are now bridging our lack of financial and human resources gap by using this strategy. We are working with partners to apply for grants, implement studies and disseminate our findings.
How IAHPC Traveling Scholars Program be improved in order to help other future traveling scholars?
If we could we start an alumni network to share experiences, and recent advances in best practices. The platform could also be used for fundraising once in a while.
Narrative summary highlighting the needs and challanges you face
"l am very grateful to IAHPC for the partial scholarship that made it possible for me to attend the EAPC 2018. An oral presentation at an international conference is always a huge honor, and I am thankful that I was able to disseminate our work, on such a platform." Eve Namisango, Travelling Scholar 2018