Traveling Scholars Program Report
Ana Paula Salas Moreira
Travel date: May 16, 2024
Name of Meeting/Event/Activity: European Association For Palliative Care Research Congress
Origin: Pamplona, Spain / Destination: Barcelona, Spain
How was this meeting/activity helpful to you?
I had two preferred plenary sessions. The first one was given by Libby Sallnow, and it covered how there are many social cultural religious and political factors that determine how death and dying and grief are understood and experienced and managed. I think it is an important conversation to have, because even though death is universal, society is not used to talking about it. It is a complex system in itself, but if you add more layers (for example, being and immigrant in a country with different beliefs), it can really become an isolating experience if not treated properly.
This leads me to the second plenary session, with Sabrina Bajwah. In a research conference full with people talking about methodologies and statistics, Bajwah stood out with the story of her late brother. This process, hard in itself, was made even more devastating by the lack of bereavement services that met the cultural and religious needs of her British-Pakistani family. Her research now focuses on trying to fix this. I believe this is important because migration is a trend that is rising, and this sort of initiatives
focused on the needs of ethnically diverse groups are going to be useful for everyone.
How will you new knowledge & acquired skills help in furthering your work in hospice and palliative care in your program/city/ or country?
I got the idea of trying to make a guideline or a manual of the intervention, for others to be able to replicate it.
What were the three main takeaways from this conference/event
The main takeaway I got from this conference is the social and cultural factors that surround illness, grief and death. Two of my favorite lectures revolved around this subject: Libby Sallnow, with her presentation on complex systems of death, dying and grieving; and Sabrina Bajwah, with her presentation on inequality in bereavement services.
Other topics repeatedly discussed in the conference were AI and and patients' dignity. Regarding AI, we had both a lecture and an expert meeting with David Casarett. From his presentations, the most interesting point were the areas of opportunity in palliative care (ex. assisted decision making, synthesis of patient's goals and preferences), but also the areas in which we have to be careful (ex. how AI can be biased). As for dignity, the most interesting intervention in my opinion was Andrea Bovero's presentation on the patient dignity question and how to see patients as people and not illnesses.
Did you attend a session or workshop on education in palliative care? If applicable, describe how you plan to enact changes to curricula in your academic institution
There was an oral presentation, given by Steven Vanderstichelen, on the assessment of a training program for volunteers in palliative care. The idea of the program was to increase the volunteers knowledge on what to do in certain situations, give them more skills and ultimately help boost their confidence to do a better job when volunteering.
I thought this was interesting, because in our palliative care courses we see that many students have an interest in volunteering but many end up not doing it. Some of them have commented that as much as they would like to, they don't feel they have the skills to do so. And maybe a program like this could motivate students to volunteer in palliative care.
Did you attend any sessions or workshops on research in palliative care? If so, describe ways you will enact what you learned in your research projects
I attended a session for young researchers on how to write good abstracts. Sometimes it is easy to get carried away when writing an abstract, and the word count ends up being too high. But some of the advice they gave was very helpful in this matter. They taught us tips on how to decide what to include, and how to include it in order to cover a lot of information in a single sentence. Hopefully I can put it to good use for the next EAPC Conference.
Did you submit an abstract for a poster and/or an oral presentation and if so was/were they accepted? What was/were the title(s)?
Yes, Educating Students of Economics, Management, Law, Architecture and Psychology on Palliative Care: Knowledge, Attitudes and Comfort.
I was a journalist in a palliative care conference, and the project I work on is rather unusual. Furthermore, it was the first time that I presented in English. Because of all of the aforementioned reasons, I was a bit nervous about not being able to communicate clearly our project.
But the presentation went well. I felt comfortable because the presentation had a coherent structure, which I think made it easy for the audience to follow. There were many questions from the audience that allowed me to elaborate on many thing I left out because of the time restriction. And I learnt that there are many people around the world who might be interested in having this type of interventions in their universities.