IAHPC Condolences Hurricane Katrina
The IAHPC Board of Directors, officers and staff members express their deepest condolences to all the victims of the Hurricane Katrina which has devastated a large portion of the Gulf Coast Region including the city of New Orleans in the USA. We are saddened at the devastation caused by the hurricane and send our sympathies to the residents of the area, the families of those who have lost their lives, the injured and to all who have been affected by this terrible disaster.
Message from the Chair
&
Executive Director
Kathleen M. Foley, MD (USA)
Liliana De Lima, MHA (USA)
Welcome back to our Newsletter. This month we have several important announcements:
First, we are glad to announce that IAHPC is initiating an open call for nominations for six seats to the IAHPC Board of Directors. Details on how to apply and the requirements are included in this letter. Deadline for nominations is October 30th, 2005. We encourage members to recommend candidates from countries around the world and from various disciplines. Candidates and nominators both need to be active IAHPC members. If you are not a current member, we invite you to join IAHPC and participate in this important process. To join IAHPC, click here
Last month IAHPC received a grant from the National Hospice and Palliative Care Organization (NHPCO) in the USA to continue the partnership of the two organizations' in the Faculty Development Program at Amrita Institute of Medical Sciences, in Kochi, Kerala, India. We are very grateful for NHPCO’s grant and especially with Dr. Stephen Connor, Vice President of the Division of Access to End-of-Life Care for his continued support and interest in this program. Amrita is the only medical school in India that is offering formal training in palliative care to postgraduate students. The program is under the coordination of Dr. Gayatri Palat with the supervision of Professor MR. Rajagopal.
This issue of the newsletter includes several reports from palliative care clinicians who have traveled either as Fellows or Scholars with funding provided by IAHPC. One is a Traveling Fellowship Report from Beris Bird, RN on her travel to Kijabe Medical Center in Kenya where she spent two months teaching palliative care and working with the hospital staff. This was the third visit of Ms Bird to the Center. The Traveling Scholarship Reports are from Dr. Reena Mary George of the Palliative Care Program at the Christian Medical College in Vellore, India who participated in the International Conference on Grief and Bereavement in London, England; and from Dr. Jorge Eisenchlas, professor of Palliative Care in Argentina, who traveled to the Research Summer School on End of Life Care at the International Observatory in End of Life Care in Lancaster University, England. We are glad to have been able to support these extraordinary individuals as part of our goal to improve education in palliative care. Their reports are an incredible testimony of the needs in palliative care education in developing countries.
We are glad to announce that we have awarded two additional Traveling Scholarships and two Traveling Fellowships this month. The Traveling Scholarships were awarded to Kalpana Baniya, RN, from B.P. Koirala Memorial Cancer Hospital , in Bharatpur, Nepal and Dr. Eva Duarte from the National Cancer Institute in Guatemala City, Guatemala. Both will be attending the 9th Annual Interdisciplinary Approach to Symptom Control, Palliative and Hospice Care sponsored by the Department of Palliative Care at the UT MD Anderson Cancer Center in Houston. Both will also spend two weeks as clinical observers at the Department of Palliative Care in the MD Anderson Cancer Center, learning at the bedside of patients as well as the operational structure of a palliative care department within a cancer hospital.
The Traveling Fellowships were awarded to Dr. Richard Harding, Lecturer in Palliative Care at King's College in London, who will spend time in October teaching research methodology in palliative care to the Palliative Care Team at the Tomas Romay Health Center in Cuba. The second Traveling Fellowship was awarded to Dr. Ahmed Elsayem, Assistant Professor at the Department of Palliative Care at the University of Texas M.D. Anderson Cancer Center in Houston, who is presently spending one month teaching palliative care at Khartoum Teaching Hospital & University of Khartoum, Sudan. This is a significant visit, as there are no palliative care initiatives in Sudan and the University is now interested in establishing a clinical and teaching program for medical students. Dr. Elsayem is fluent in Arabic and as a native of Sudan and a palliative care expert; he will establish an ongoing partnership with the University of Khartoum to continue supporting this initiative in the future.
The World Hospice and Palliative Care Day (WHPCD) has kept us busy. The group at Help the Hospices in the UK has done an incredible job of coordinating the event and generating an enormous interest from countries all around the world. Many concerts, exhibitions, symposiums, movie festivals and other activities will take place in towns, cities, hospitals and theaters. Thanks to a grant from the Open Society Institute, IAHPC has been able to fund programs in Brazil, Cuba, Colombia, Mexico, Argentina, Guatemala, Philippines, Uruguay and Moldova to support activities to celebrate the Day. We invite all our readers to participate in the celebration of the WHPCD by planning activities in their institutions, hospices and communities. To learn more about the Day and how you can become involved, go to www.worldday.org
Next week we will be in a meeting on Palliative Care in Cancer in Budapest, during which we will discuss with colleagues, from various Eastern European countries, strategies to implement effective palliative care programs in cancer. The meeting is sponsored by the International Palliative Care Initiative from the Open Society Institute Network Public Health Program and will include the participation of the WHO Cancer Control Program as well as representatives of 20 different countries in the region. We look forward to the outcomes of this meeting. Some of the topics that will be covered include developing national standards of palliative care, establishing effective programs and models of care, drug availability and policy issues, palliative care in the public health policy, certification in palliative care and funding issues.
Our website is currently undergoing a major renewal and redesign of all its pages. Anne Laidlaw, our webmaster, and her staff at Alou Web Design are working very hard to keep our site current and able to meet the demands of the thousands of visitors we register every day. We are also constantly adding resources in palliative and hospice care to make them available to the global palliative care community. This month we have renewed our Resources section, which includes the following: Administrative and Program Development Tools; Assessment and Research Tools; Educational Resources; Employment Listings; Teachers in Palliative Care; Policy and Advocacy Tools; Standards in Palliative Care and Treatment Guidelines. Visit this section and if you know of a tool or resource that is not listed in here, let us know. We will be happy to add a link to an existing page or upload it in our site if it’s not available in the Internet.
Finally, we are happy to announce that IAHPC Press is now selling Dr. Derek Doyle's publication: The Platform Ticket Memories and Musings of a Hospice Doctor, The Pentland Press Limited, Durham, UK, 1999 at US $15 for developing countries and US $20 for developed countries. If you would like to read a review of the book, please click here. A portion of the sales will be donated to support our mission. We invite you to order this great publication and help the promotion and dissemination of palliative care in the World. To order click here
Until next month,
Kathy Foley, MD
Chair, Board of Directors |
Liliana De Lima, MHA
Executive Director |
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© 2005 IAHPC Press 
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