SIG Cancer and Palliative Care annual report
Dr Alan Barnard, convenor WONCA SIG on Cancer and Palliative Care reports:
The activities of the SIG this period have concentrated on the planning and maintenance of the International Primary Palliative Care Network (IPPCN). This is a network of family doctors or other professionals involved in primary palliative care. This group meets annually, and preparations are in place to convene at the European Association for Palliative Care (EAPC) conference in Berlin from 23 to 26 May 2019.
The EAPC has a reference group for primary palliative care, and an education toolkit has been one of the most significant outputs of this collaboration over the past few years. The members of the reference group and IPPCN have contributed further to education for primary palliative care in India, where a toolkit was workshopped and written up before publication in the Indian Journal of Primary Care. Dr Raman Kumar played a leading role in this work.
Opportunities for palliative care activities at WONCA meetings have not been exploited since WONCA World in Seoul, for which I apologise. Dr Ai from Japan approached me in November / December, and I was unfortunately unable to assist her with planning for the Asia Pacific meeting in May 2019.
One of the members of the IPPCN steering committee, Dr Yasemin Kilic, is from Turkey and has offered to connect that network with Dr Mehmet Ungan who is very supportive of the primary palliative care enterprise that the SIG share with IPPCN.The opportunity for connecting with the WONCA Young Doctors group is also yet to be realised, which is an important action for the next quarter.
Next steps
Next steps in the SIG development include:
- Discuss the next stage of the SIG with WONCA President
- Connect with Dr Praytush Kumar to seek his help with network development and the identification of a steering committee for the SIG. Identify one member from each WONCA region to serve
- Sustain and develop the relationship with regional and international palliative care networks.
- Plan to hold a telephone/skype meeting with interested members
- Plan for one further WONCA regional conference workshop in Cancer and Palliative care before WONCA 2020 in Abu Dhabi