On 22 November, the Barcelona Campus hosted the annual international workshop organised by the WeCare Chair with the support of Áltima, the Catalan Institute of Oncology and Ferrer. The conference, entitled “New Horizons: Palliative Care in Haematology,” brought together specialist national and international speakers in the field of haematology and palliative care. 

 

More than 100 healthcare professionals specialising in palliative care and haematology attended the event from universities, hospitals and primary healthcare facilities from throughout Spain, as well as organisations and associations such as Áltima, the CEMMP (Spanish Community of Patients with Multiple Myeloma) and the Catalan Institute of Oncology. “Palliative care and haematology are becoming increasingly interlinked as disciplines. Slowly but steadily, each day more evidence is published regarding the mutual benefits of this cooperation,” says Dr Josep Porta, co-director of the WeCare Chair. This year's event enabled participants to gain first-hand knowledge of the most recent research in this area of palliative care and share experiences with peers and patients. 

 

In the first part of the event, Dr Josep Porta gave a presentation on “Palliative Care and Clinical Haematology: Evidence and Potential Cooperation Models.” A round table was then held on “Encouraging Factors and Constraints: A Spanish’s Perspective”, as well as the talks on “Multiple Myeloma: A Still Incurable but Highly Treatable Disease”, given by Dr Albert Oriol; “The Families of Multiple Myeloma Patients”, by Carmen Quinoa; and “The Patients’ Perspective", in which Teresa Regueiro, president of the CEMMP shared her experience. At the end of the various presentations, those attending had the opportunity to discuss the issue with the experts.

 

The second part comprised the talk on “Pain in Multiple Myeloma”, given by Andrea Tendas, and the presentation “Assessing Quality of Life in Multiple Myeloma” given by Dr Irene Higginson, creator of the MyPOS scale to assess the needs of patients affected by the disease.