IAHPC Traveling Scholar's Report

A report by Ximena Pozo (Ecuador)

I attended the VI Congreso Latinoamericano de Cuidados Paliativos in Curitiba, Brazil, during May, 2012. It was particularly helpful to me since I met fellow workers and acquired information about palliative care teaching and management. Learning from the experiences of others was my top priority so that I could apply what was relevant to my current clinical care and to my teaching responsibilities at Pontificia Universidad Católica del Ecuador and in managing palliative care programs at the Government Health Department in Ecuador.

Sharing teaching experiences is always helpful and invigorating. I think it is very important to develop these topics throughout Latin America. Another of my goals was to create an educational group in Latin American, an idea that was immediately accepted by many.  We produced a draft list of interested people and gave it to Dr. Roberto Wenk who is in charge of education. We had our first group call and look forward to continuing with this endeavor.

I am already putting into practice a lot of what I learned about management as I am working on a palliative care project within the Government Health Department in my country of Ecuador. All the information I accumulated has been useful

The most important challenge is to develop a palliative care program in the public health system in my country. Health services need opioid analgesics to be available and professional education to further knowledge about pain and symptom management. This is a really a big challenge, but the Health Authority of Ecuador is interested in supporting a palliative care proposal, and we are formally working with them. We are a small, but enthusiastic group, and I think that everything I learned in this meeting will be very helpful for my work and for our nationwide project in Ecuador.

Keeping in touch with people who have been working on similar projects has been very profitable, and their recommendations have been found to be wise.

I strongly believe that a greater diffusion of the IAHPC Scholarship Program will benefit many other people working in palliative care.

Dr. Ximena Pozo
Quito, Ecuador