From the President’s Desk

Dear Friends,

Dr. Sushma Bhatnagar

On behalf of IAPC, I am delighted to announce the launch of several exciting training programs designed by IAPC, which aim to empower our palliative care professionals and volunteers to deliver quality palliative care to those in need.

The first in this series will be the ‘IAPC’s Course in Palliative Care – Physiotherapy Interface’, which will be organized virtually on Saturday, 10th September, 2022, between 2 p.m. and 5:45 p.m. The program is designed to sensitize and empower physiotherapists by improving their understanding of how they can contribute towards the rendering of holistic palliative care, and also educate the palliative care community on how physiotherapy can augment their patient care and symptom management. This program will benefit, physiotherapists, doctors and nurses working in the field of Palliative care.  I urge you to enrol yourself and your team members as it will definitely help your team to provide quality palliative care to your patients. Please click here for further details and to submit your application on or before Tuesday, 6th September, 2022.

The IAPC is happy to deliver the 2nd batch of the IAPC’s ‘Certificate Course in Palliative Care Pharmacy’ on Sunday, 25th September, 2022, in commemoration of the World Pharmacist Day. The course aims to equip participants with adequate knowledge of commonly used drugs in Palliative Care for pain management and to manage other symptoms. The course will also cover Essential Narcotic Drugs and Narcotic Drugs, along with the technical legalities to procure, store, dispense and document the same. Please click here for further details and don’t forget to submit applications before Friday, 16th September, 2022, to participate in this online training program.

Continuing the tradition to constantly build capacity through continuous education in the different domains of palliative care, the IAPC has now formalized a structured training program for prospective volunteers who want to make a positive difference to palliative patients and their caregivers. With the IAPC’s Certificate Course in Palliative Care for Volunteers (VCCPC), we intend to move towards ‘creating a compassionate community’. The first batch of the 16 hours online theory classes will be delivered as half day online sessions over two weekends in October and November, 2022. I request you to visit the course announcement webpage for further details and to enrol for the program.

Please continue reading the Education and Training section for details about a few other important training programs that were conducted over the past month across the country. I am certain that each of these programs will create a great and positive impact towards the development of palliative care services in our country.

I am also elated to invite each of you to a very important webinar organised by IAPC, to commemorate Patient Safety Day, on Saturday, 17th September, 2022, at 5.00 p.m. The webinar ‘World Patient Safety Day: A dialogue in Palliative Care Patient Safety’ aims to recognize the growing importance of patient safety especially within the palliative care community and hopes to therefore raise awareness about World Patient Safety Day and its various components (bio-psycho-social aspects along with a focus on quality) relevant to palliative care by engaging and empowering the palliative care community to adopt all forms of patient safety practices. I extend my gratitude to the Key Note Speaker, the Panellists and the Moderator for their support towards this webinar. Please continue reading the Announcements and Messages from IAPC section of this newsletter for further information about this.  

I hope that you have registered and are working towards submitting your abstracts for the upcoming 30th Annual International Conference of the Indian Association of Palliative Care (IAPCON 2023). Don’t forget that the IAPC has announced a travel grant of Rs 10,000 each to 10 of the best abstracts submitted at IAPCON 2023. Please visit the conference website for further details about IAPCON 2023.

The IAPC’s Singing for the Stars program, in collaboration with the Shankar Mahadevan Academy Nirvana (SMA Nirvana) is yielding fruitful results as we are receiving warm responses towards both our regional program and the mutli-lingual national program. Our next regional program is scheduled for Friday, 9th September, 2022, at 2:50 p.m. and is dedicated for our friends from Jammu and Kashmir and Ladakh; and our national multi lingual program is scheduled for Thursday, 22nd September, 2022. I once again extend my heart felt gratitude to SMA Nirvana and all the artist’s who presented programs for us in August 2022. Further details regarding these events are available in the Announcement and messages from IAPC section of this newsletter.  

I invite you to read the IAPC’s exclusive article’s in the Interesting Reads section of the September edition of the newsletter. I also thank our contributors for their support.

As we are inching close to the World Hospice and Palliative Care Day 2022, I invite you to join the global palliative care community to join in celebrating the day on Saturday, 8th October, 2022, to raise your voice for hospice and palliative care. Don’t forget to showcase your event before the global palliative care community by registering your event on the Worldwide Hospice and Palliative Care Alliance’s webpage. Further details available in the Announcement and messages from IAPC section of this newsletter.

Take care.

Warm regards,

Dr. Sushma Bhatnagar
President, IAPC