Grantee details

Traveling Scholars Program Report

Marina Alejandra Torres Hernandez, MS

Travel date: April 14, 2016

Name of Meeting/Event/Activity: VIII Latin American Congress on Palliative Care

Origin: Bogota, Colombia / Destination: Mexico City, Mexico


How was this meeting/activity helpful to you?

It contributed to the growing of my professional path, in the palliative care area producing a great experience to my career, making stronger professional relationships.

How will you new knowledge & acquired skills help in furthering your work in hospice and palliative care in your program/city/ or country?

The possibility of share the experience acquired in the hospice of my country, this gave me the opportunity to add my knowledge to other view points about this, making a stronger process and motivation to continue my path with new individual goals, and this helped me to research and improve my skills. Here is represented the need of show the work that have been developed in Colombia about this, where I have integrate many theoric references, to enrich the practice to operate the psyhoterapy. In my opinion I still have the responsibility to recopilate and develop new practices as professional in psychologist and art-therapist. In this interaction I could share with others about the professional practice that I apply with art, using this as a way to communicate, and say what the words cant explain even in spiritual terms.

How IAHPC Traveling Scholars Program be improved in order to help other future traveling scholars?

Is an excellent way to help to increase the possibilities about the human and professional duties in palliative care. I wish this chances improve in different academic systems and the possibility of formation and update that is growing now in many countries. I don\'t know if there is a way to interact like sharing services of international palliative care, and that this could be subventioned. I am very thankful for this opportunity and I hope continue helping to this, and amplify my knowledge and maintain me updated.

Narrative summary highlighting the needs and challanges you face

Colombia is growing talking about palliative care, there are a lot of missing posibilities about the proffesionalization and update, this produce insufficent number of professionals focused in this area, this should even be part of the pregrade formation. The institutions need a respawnding system during the process of treatment and boarding of the problema. Maybe they dont see the enought need to an emotional and spiritual respawnding. There are many limits as the sistematic control hierarchy at the levels of medical boarding above others, until the practice systems of the área. Adding too the politics of health systems of the country the understanding of a dign death and life quality must be clear to erase the bad thinkings about this, to help the families, counting with the differences between curative and palliative ways and the posibilities to end the sorrow and the pain with a decision based on the symptoms diagnosis, a pact of the both parts, but in the end it could be individual to choose their own destination. Yet the human sorrow still being the daily enviroment in hospitals and other health institutions, but the communication and human respect and fraternity , important characters of life ignored by the system and the daily work, the tact is lose with thw time, the people that I meet in my job are victimized by the health system, their health problems, and here we can see how the system have become a place without opportunities or goals, an empty space with difficult. Access by its cost, and with a terrible problem of quality. Its cruel and sad to see how they realy dont care about the situation of their patients. They now just are waiting to get a salary and with this they are blinded about the objective of a health system which should be to help others mercy and amability to rise above their sorrow. For the people whose get Access to this kind of meetings and congress, this become a personal and professional opportunity to share experiences, increase knowledge and contacts about our duty and occupation in palliative cares. This let us see how there is not just an unique way to do it, because this is up to our skills and ideas of improvement with some kind of sense of community to help others in a correct way, to innovate the methods of help those who need it, to give hope and backup in the worst moments, try to give a happiness and calm, finding the way out the trouble, transcendenting the own benefit ideas of the selfish system, being human, feeling pity and respect. There is necesary yet to complement the treatment and boarding of the palliative cares, skills as at therapy and others, to promote the benefit conditions and make part of the process to help the people to take out everything they have to say, getting peace, being there always. I think my greatest treat is apply this in each session with inmaterial resources, as spiritual and personal emotions, feelings and memories, to content their problem, even with low respawn of our government. This requires great effort, humanity, faith, courage, and making this remain strong during the professional journey. As said Madre Teresa de Calcuta “sometimes we feel that what we are doing is jus a drop in a Deep ocean, but this ocean will be smaller if there is missing one drop…” then I can say that the best thing of this congress is that other workers helped me to maintain the hope burning and my heart beating to make this a better situation , improving on my area. Finaly I want to say thank you, because your help was very usefull and important, and i would like to be remembered, and taken in consideration to future meetings that could exeed my vision.


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