The co-directors of the Chair Dr Josep Porta Sales - a professor of palliative care at UIC Barcelona and head of Research and Education for the Palliative Care Service at the Catalan Institute of Oncology and Dr
Cristina Monforte - Director of the Department of Nursing at UIC Barcelona welcomed the hundred and fifty attendees,  along with Mr Josep Ventura, the General Director of Áltima.  After the inauguration, speakers from Spain, Germany, Canada and the United States talked about the WHD from different points of view.  Dr Allison Applebaum, from the Sloan-Kettering Cancer Center in New York, focused on the reaction of family members when dealing with the WHD in their family members and talked about the importance of communication between professionals, family members and patients in these situations.  Vanessa Romotzky and Gerrit Frerich from the University of Cologne talked about the importance of training professionals in this field, which, according to them, is currently practically non-existent in Europe.  Dr Keith Wilson, from the Ottawa Hospital Research Institute talked about how to detect and provide a response to the WHD in clinical practice. 

According to Dr Cristina Monforte, "professionals often demonstrate that they do not know how to deal with the type of suffering - that goes beyond the physical or emotional- at the end of life.  The workshop is a forum of reflection between clinics and researchers which is unique in Europe and is enriched by the participation of international speakers, who come to describe their experiences in other countries.  Dr Josep Porta underlined the fact that "palliative care is very widespread around the country, but now we need to look more in-depth into how we can do this better, in terms of the qualitative side. The introduction of subjects [like this] into degree programmes in Faculties of Medicine and Medical schools, like we have done at UIC Barcelona, can help to achieve this objective". Josep Ventura, the General Director of Áltima, highlighted the fact that WeCare is a "chair that is committed to research to help alleviate suffering during the final stages of life. This university chair is the best way to channel creation and the transfer of knowledge to society".