European Association of Palliative Care Congress Day 1

May 19 2017

Merry posts from Madrid…

Jackie, Aileen and I are in Madrid at the largest palliative care congress ever: EAPC 2017. Diane Meier, Director of the Center to Advance Palliative Care (CAPC) in the States posed this question in the first plenary: “How do we make palliative care as widely adopted as smart phones?” Her take on the conference’s theme: “Progressing palliative care.”

One strategy is to edit the top 30 relevant disease pages on Wikipedia ensuring that palliative care is mentioned in all of them. Practical, eh?

Allan Kellehear’s key message is, “It’s not palliative care for all, but all for palliative care.” A statement that at the same time underscored and challenged a strong theme that surfaced throughout the day: the need for palliative care to reach everyone and the need to address inequity.

Allan’s public health approach to palliative care resonates strongly with  Te Arai’s values and mission. He also helpfully provided a background for my presentation tomorrow!