De Doelen, Rotterdam, The Netherlands 15th-17th June 2023

Dr. David Hui is a associate professor at the Department of Palliative Care, Rehabilitation and Integrative Medicine, with a joint appointment to the Department of General Oncology at the University of Texas MD Anderson Cancer Center, Houston, USA. His research interests include symptom management clinical trials, prognostication, integration of supportive/palliative care and oncology and research methodology. He has authored and/or co-authored over 300 scientific papers, with his work appearing in various peer review journals such as the Journal of American Medical Association, CA: A Cancer Journal for Clinicians, the Journal of Clinical Oncology, Lancet Oncology and Annals of Oncology. He is the principal investigator of several randomized controlled trials funded by the National Cancer Institute, National Institute of Nursing Research and American Cancer Society. He is the author/editor of 4 books. Dr. Hui currently serves as a standing member of a study section at the National Institutes of Health. He is also a senior associate editor of the Journal of Pain and Symptom Management and a board member of the Multinational Association for Supportive Care in Cancer. In addition to academic pursuits, he remains active clinically in both palliative care and medical oncology.

Dr Zipporah Ali has recently retired from the position of Executive Director of Kenya Hospices and Palliative Care Association (KEHPCA), a position she held for 15 years. She is the current chair of the NCD Alliance Kenya and the Vice President of AORTIC East Africa. She serves on several national and international boards. Dr. Ali has been and continues to be involved in advocacy and creating awareness on pain relief and palliative care in Kenya for children and adults as well as Universal Health Coverage. In her leadership role as the Executive Director for KEHPCA, she was very instrumental in fostering strong relationships with the Ministry of Health to integrate palliative care into government hospitals. She was also instrumental in advocating for palliative care to be included in the undergraduate medical and nursing schools in Kenya. She is a strong advocate for cancer prevention, control and treatment and was instrumental in developing the first National Cancer Control Strategy and the National Guidelines for Cancer Management-Kenya. She has also advocated for palliative care to be integrated in other non-communicable diseases as well as infectious diseases. She is a strong advocate for right to health for all and a supporter of the movement on meaningful involvement of persons living with serious health conditions and leaving no one behind.

Ida J. Korfage is associate professor of quality of life and decision making. For this flagship she will also contribute her expertise considering patient and public involvement in research and teaching. She is an economist and epidemiologist by training. She is co-PI on an EU project on decision support tools in oncology, combining data sciences, design research and medical and social sciences (4D PICTURE). She co-chaired the EAPC Task Force on advance care planning and co-chairs the current one on advance care planning and dementia. From 2016-19 she was elected member of the Board of Directors of the International Society of Quality of Life Research (ISOQOL).

Prof. Per Sjøgren is a medical doctor and anesthetist who became a professor in palliative medicine in 2021 in the Department of Oncology, Rigshospitalet, University of Copenhagen. His scientific interests include palliative medicine and pain management, management of chronic cancer and non-cancer pain, symptom etiology, epidemiology and treatment outcomes and opioid pharmacology, consumption and long-term treatment consequences. He is author/co-author of ~ 300 peer-reviewed scientific articles and books/book chapters in palliative medicine and pain management. Former chair of the Danish Society of Palliative Medicine and vice-president of European Association for Palliative Care (EAPC) and currently member of the Danish Society of Palliative Medicine and International Scientific Expert Panel (ISEP) of Cicely Saunders Institute.

Raymond Voltz has been interested in the hospice idea since 1985 and was one of the founding members of the German Society of Palliative Medicine in 1994 and has been its vice president from 2006 to 2012, chairing the national palliative care congress in 2014. He is on the steering board of the National Palliative Care Guideline, chairs the Palliative and Hospice network Cologne and sits on the steering board of Caring Community Cologne. He is member of different medical boards and reviewer in different national and international professional associations and journals. The clinical phenomenon of a desire to die is a major clinical research and teaching topic in the Cologne Department of Palliative Care.

Dr. Kelli Stajduhar is a professor in the School of Nursing and Institute on Aging & Lifelong Health at the University of Victoria. She has worked in oncology, palliative care, and gerontology for 30 years as a practicing nurse, educator, and researcher. Her clinical work and research has focused on health service needs for those at the end-of-life and their families, and on the needs of marginalized and vulnerable populations. She is lead investigator on multiple research projects including international research collaboratives on family caregiving, integration of a palliative approach to care across health sectors and studies on access to end-of-life care for people facing structural vulnerabilities. She is the recipient of numerous awards and most recently was inducted as a Fellow into the Canadian Academy of Health Sciences and the Canadian Academy of Nursing and in 2021 was awarded the highly competitive Tier 1 Canada Research Chair in Palliative Approaches to Care in Aging & Community Health.

Prof. Mark Taubert is a palliative medicine hospital consultant and clinical director at Velindre University NHS Trust. His teaching and research activities at Cardiff University include advance care planning, acute palliative care, technology & new media and DNACPR decision making. He is the founder of TalkCPR.com and has a national lead role to improve public understanding on topics relevant to care in the last years of life and at the extreme ends of medicine. He has delivered a Ted Talk on subtleties in language that are relevant to modern healthcare delivery, and writes for international news outlets like the Washington Post. His Twitter handle is: @ProfMarkTaubert

Barbara Sourkes PhD, a child psychologist, is the first John Kriewall and Elizabeth Haehl Director of the Palliative Care Program at Lucile Packard Children’s Hospital Stanford, and Professor of Pediatrics at Stanford University. Dr Sourkes is the co-editor of Interdisciplinary Pediatric Palliative Care (2nd edition - 2022). In addition to many articles and chapters, Dr. Sourkes has written three books: The Deepening Shade: Psychological Aspects of Life-threatening Illness (1982), Armfuls of Time: The Child’s Psychological Experience of Life-Threatening Illness (1995) and co-authored (with Michel Hanus MD) Les Enfants en Deuil: Portraits du Chagrin (1997). She served as a member of the Institute of Medicine Committee on Palliative and End-of-Life Care for Children and their Families and has won several awards, including the Charles Corr Award for Literature from Children’s Hospice International (1999); the Outstanding Clinical Care award from the American Psychosocial Oncology Society (2011) and the Humanities Award from the American Academy of Hospice and Palliative Medicine (2014).