Traveling Scholars Program Report
Farah Demachkieh, Ms.
Travel date: October 6, 2021
Name of Meeting/Event/Activity: 17th World Congress of the European Association for Palliative Care
Origin: Beirut, Lebanon / Destination: Vilvoorde, Belgium
How was this meeting/activity helpful to you?
The conference included a wide variety of sessions that are equally important for palliative care. I have been lately very interested in certain topics which I selected to attend including advance care planning in general and in patients with dementia patients, models of care, and compassionate communities. The sessions are of very high quality and provided valuable knowledge, experiences and insight about the different aspects of palliative care. The very nice thing in this online conference as compared to face to face is the opportunity to watch other parallel sessions at a later stage and the ability to re-watch sessions when needed.
How will you new knowledge & acquired skills help in furthering your work in hospice and palliative care in your program/city/ or country?
SANAD is a NGO that provides home-based hospice care to patients who have advanced illnesses; mainly cancer patients. With time SANAD started to see more patients who have non-cancer diagnosis mainly elderly patients with dementia like diagnosis. Advance care planning with patients with dementia has its own specificities. The conference provided me with the opportunity to know more about the latest research studies and experiences about advance care planning in general and in dementia in specific. In Lebanon, advance care planning face several barriers related to cultural factors (taboos related to talking about death and dying) and lack of communication skills among health care professionals. Among the presentations attended was a research project that talked about the importance of adopting a social rather than a medical approach towards advance care planning. Such findings are very interesting and helpful for clinical practice. I will be sharing the findings of these studies with the clinical team in an effort to adopt a new evidence based approach that can help us better support dementia patients and their families in meeting their wishes and preferences towards the end of life.
This conference also shared the results of the SILENCE study an RCT for the prophylactic use of scopolamine for death rattle. The results of such a study are pivotal for clinical practice and such recommendations will be shared with SANAD team to discuss the applicability of these findings and their implications on our clinical practice.
Last but not least, compassionate communities/cities have been gaining more and more attention for some good time. Acknowledging the fact that death, loss and grief are mainly social rather than just medical experience is vital, and hence adopting a public health approach toward understanding the social context where these phenomena happen, and identifying the factors that can enhance such experiences and build more resilient and inclusive communities is crucial. I have a public health background with a focus on health promotion and community health and hence this topic is of great interest to me. The different sessions about compassionate communities/cities provided me with great insight on this topic. After piloting the 1 year bereavement program, SANAD has been interested in this approach. At the moment we have several community activities that shed light on death and grief including social media posts, Facebook lives and our 1 year bereavement program. In Lebanon there are no compassionate communities initiatives or interventions that has been carried out. In the future our ultimate aim is to play a more active role in adopting a public health model towards death, dying and grief by adapting and piloting a compassionate community intervention that is tailored to the context of Lebanon hoping that such interventions will strengthen the cohesion of communities amidst a pandemic and an economic collapse.
How IAHPC Traveling Scholars Program be improved in order to help other future traveling scholars?
I think the scholarship is just great. It provided access to a vast majority of high quality research presentations that have valuable impact on clinical practice. The access to the recordings and the abstracts has been immensely beneficial in being able to attend other parallel sessions at a later stage.
I believe the IAHPC scholarship is a great source of support to clinicians and researchers in palliative care especially those in limited resource settings. It provides them with a great opportunity to stay informed about the latest evidence in palliative care and provides new ideas about projects and interventions to implement in their own countries and care settings.
Narrative summary highlighting the needs and challanges you face
In Lebanon, advance care planning face several barriers related to cultural factors (taboos related to talking about death and dying) and lack of communication skills among health care professionals. In addition advance care planning and talking about code status is more common with cancer patients in comparison to patients with dementia. Among the several presentations attended on advance care planning was a research project that talked about the importance of adopting a social rather than a medical approach towards advance care planning. Such findings are very interesting and helpful for clinical practice. I will be sharing the findings of these studies with the clinical team in an effort to adopt a new evidence based approach that can help us better support dementia patients and their families in meeting their wishes and preferences towards the end of life.
In Lebanon, palliative has been advancing in the last 10 years. However it is still provided via specialized palliative care service model. A generalist and a public health approach has not been adopted yet. The sessions that address compassionate communities interventions provided valuable insight into such interventions. Currently SANAD conducts several community activities that shed light on death and grief including social media posts, Facebook lives and a 1 year bereavement program. In Lebanon there are no compassionate communities initiatives or interventions that has been carried out. In the future our ultimate aim is to play a more active role in adopting a public health model towards death, dying and grief by adapting and piloting a compassionate community intervention that is tailored to the context of Lebanon hoping that such interventions will strengthen the cohesion of communities amidst a pandemic and an economic collapse.