Highlights from EAPC 2019: Global Palliative Care – Shaping the future

BMC姑息治疗recently attended the 16th World Research Congress of the欧洲协会姑息治疗(EAPC), which took place May 23rd - 25th in Berlin, Germany. This year’s meeting focused on a particular message: "Severely ill and dying patients need adequate access to an early, coordinated, and continuous palliative care in Europe and around the world." Here we touch upon some of the highlights of the congress.

I took overBMC姑息治疗作为国会前一个月的编辑,对该领域的临床医生,护理人员,研究人员,志愿者,志愿者,患者拥护者和教育工作者感到特别兴奋。在听到有关姑息治疗社区的许多积极的事情之后,我热衷于了解姑息治疗如何适应当前的全球健康议程。

The increasing recognition of the importance of palliative care in society is reflected by the growing number of EAPC congress delegates each year, with this year’s event reaching an attendance of 3,000. Among them, particularly the Australian and New Zealand delegates filled the rooms with positivity and even managed to encourage the whole audience to join in their chanting in one of the keynote talks.

“When you are well, you belong to yourself, but when you are sick, you belong to your family.”- 卢旺达说

在开幕式上,菲尔·拉金教授,甲氧苄吲酚ent of the EAPC, introduced a strong and clear statement – ‘Palliative Care must be part of the global health agenda’, followed by a heartwarming opening concert session performed by the German band ‘Nordlichter’. Welcome to Berlin!

EAPC世界大会科学委员会主席SèbastieneMoine博士提醒我们,自改编以来,五年Resolution on Palliative Care by the World Health Assembly, the EAPC World Congress in Berlin is perfectly timed. The upcoming days will give us the chance to reflect the progress in the global development of palliative care. For a better integration in care Dr. Moine presented an upgrade version of the ‘EAPCPrimary Palliative Care Toolkit’ endorsed by WONCA, the World Organization of Family Doctors, with the words: ’Here is to hoping for the dissemination of the palliative care approach into primary care!’.

EAPCposter hall.
Linda Gummlich

The World Congress participants had the chance to take part in various stimulating meeting tracks, seminars, discussion forums, and poster sessions. It was often hard to pick the next one to go to with many interesting sessions and topics in parallel. Fortunately, I managed to attend interesting sessions which all touched the latest challenges in the field, e.g. an increased request of palliative care for prison inmates, the different models and policies of physician assisted dying around the world and palliative care plans for mentally ill patients.

Plenary talks – Is Palliative Care biased?

“It has been easier since Jack died (…) I neglected my own health.”- 女子照顾者

The choice of invited speakers was positively excellent; the plenary talks were thought-provoking and motivating. Yet, Prof. Merryn Gott’s presentation, Dr. Katherine Sleeman’s provoking keynote, and Dr. Ntizimira’s journey stood out and persisted in the audience’s mind for a while.

Professor Gott (University Auckland)raised the question if palliative care is gender-biased. She created awareness for a large group of unnoticed women who feel obliged to care for their husbands at home, outside of the radar of hospitals, doctors, hospices, or any help. As a wife, they feel bound by marriage to take care ‘until the end’ and urgently need to be more supported in their burden, physically and mentally.

Dr. Sleeman (Kings College London, UK)strongly reminded us of the importance of well-designed studies and valid research questions to stop the influx of low quality data and to avoid ‘research waste’ that could limit the resources of reviewers and publishers. She highly encouraged us all to increase the value of research, connect and cooperate, and work closely with stake holders to promote the transition from published research to desperately needed real world policies. She did well to remind us all that our mission does not end with our published articles.

Ntizimira博士的演讲Palliative care for Rohingya refugees in Cox’s Bazar (Bangladesh)’带我们所有人踏上了充满挑战的旅程,并提高了人们对非常脆弱的人口的认识。再次,在世界范围内迫切需要足够的早期,协调和连续的姑息治疗。

Global Challenges in Pediatric Palliative Care

Children’s palliative care is an emerging field with many similarities to adult palliative care but also distinct differences. In Berlin, the EAPC hosted for the very first time, a dedicated pediatric palliative care seminar in the Europe Hall on Thursday 23rd五月编译一个interesti委员会管理ng program on the latest clinical, ethical and political issues inviting experts in the field. I had the chance to attend the last session on’ Challenges on pediatric palliative care’ and still have goose bumps when I think about it.

“尽可能多地,尽我们所能,尽可能多地尽力而为。”– Written note at hospice in Uganda

与我最初的假设相反,在姑息治疗中受影响最大的儿科组是0-1岁的儿童。Dr. Eduard Verhagen (University of Groningen)提供了有关帮助父母在一生中最痛苦的时期做出明智决定的挑战和工具的见解。Danai Papadatou博士(希腊雅典心理学主任)is one of the most popular personas in the field. Her use of theories, concepts, history, and models are well-known and delightful. She manages to convey complex ideas in a manner that is accessible to all and took us on her journey of accompanying children at end of life. She later gave another insightful plenary talk on her work with minor refugees that she has visited in camps throughout Southern Europe in the past years.

EAPC遇到ESMO:肿瘤学和姑息治疗的整合

The Lancet Oncology commissioned article (卡萨et al., 2018) and the ESMO (European Society of Medical Oncology) position paper onSupportive and palliative care(Jordanet al., Annals of Oncology 2017) delivered the ideal basis to discuss the growing challenges and interfaces in the area of integration of oncology and palliative care. Delegates were warmly welcome to attend the full day EAPC – ESMO Seminar in the Europe Hall on Friday 24th五月As Editor ofBMC CancerBMC姑息治疗,I was particularly interested in thespecial track.

The committee invited great panels and speakers that triggered critical and fruitful discussions on current challenges, latest developments and the place of death. However, there is still so much we need to do to unite the clinical and traditionally grown cancer-focused treatment approaches with early palliative care plans to serve the most important part: the cancer patients and their families.

EAPCCongress ePosters – a complete success

EAPC估计师 - 一种有价值的方法
Linda Gummlich

EAPCorganizers helped to overcome the well-known conference struggles like presentation scheduling conflicts by installing 3 large monitors and a platform that run all posters as electronic posters throughout the congress. Attendees were able to search via topic, title or author. One even had the feature to email posters – those which received consent by the authors – to attendees to view later. The delegates valued the approach, and the ePoster platform will be part of future EAPC conferences.

Poster Award and EAPC Research Paper of the year 2018

在最后一次仪式上Consensus building on health indicators to access palliative care global development with an international group of experts’ has been awarded as best reflecting the congress theme. There was a standing ovation whenDaniel Gainz-Miranda他来自Sermas的同事(西班牙北马德里姑息治疗团队)被宣布为EAPCResearch Article of the Year 2018winners. Many congratulations to both research teams, well deserved.

Photo competition, interactive wall and unique conference bags

Interactive conference features: ‘Before I die…’ wall and palliative care photo competition.
Linda Gummlich

The congress committee provided the delegates with some unique meeting features. Participants were invited to take breaks, slow down, and review their own thoughts on dying and palliative care at different areas of the conference site. We were encouraged to write down our dreams and life goals on the ‘在我死之前…。’ wall. The attempt was more or less taken seriously, and the frequently changing additions helped to put a smile on the face of many passersby – with the most popular ones even hitting the conference’s twitter feeds.

Meanwhile, in the hallway we had the chance to vote on our favorites for the photo competition. Deciding was difficult, with various intimate and touching pictures, yet not too cliché for the field. I am secretly pleased to report one of my favorites won the photo competition award. Congratulations!

Unique handmade EAPC conference bags.
Linda Gummlich

One of the most wanted items at the meeting were the unique conference bags. EAPC supported theKawempe Home Care (KHC),乌干达的私人非营利性社区组织,为所有代表下令成千上万的手工会议袋。每个袋子比对方更漂亮,在整个会议上很难发现重复。随着袋子的持久,可持续和体贴的态度,人们在最后一天排队,抓住了剩下的袋子和几秒钟的家中的朋友和家人。我爱上了我的书包,会保留它。这是一个温柔的想起,从那以后我听到的话题和对话。

EAPC 2019很高兴,我期待再次见到所有人EAPC 2020在巴勒莫, Italy, next year.

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