The Assembly meeting of the EOLinPLACE Project was held on the 13th and 14th of June bringing together senior researchers, PhD students and advisors to share achievements and discuss the following stages of the project.
Julia Downing, Chief Executive of the International Children’s Palliative Care Network (ICPCN) participated as an advisor, sharing insight on her experience and research with children in need of palliative care: “Research with children at the end of life poses important ethical concerns, however, they can and must be tackled as there is an urgent need for more evidence on the pathways and preferences of these children and their families”.
With an international scope covering both adult and child patients, the EOLinPLACE Project – “Choice of where we die” fosters collaboration between Portuguese, Dutch, Ugandan and North American teams, all of which shared their progress and discussed next steps in the timeline to achieve the project’s main vision to reform the way dying places are classified and understood, refining and shifting the focus from the place of death to the pathway that precedes. As a way to honor diversity in the places people receive care and die, and their individual preferences in different parts of the world.
“It was wonderful to sit down with the whole team. The diversity that comes from this international and multidisciplinary team is very fruitful for both the discussions and outputs of the work we are doing. The advisors have a crucial role in supporting the project’s activities as well as bringing the patient’s and their family’s voices to the table”, Barbara Gomes, principal investigator stated. “It’s great to have Julia Downing from ICPCN on board, to tackle the challenges of researching this sensitive topic within the paediatric population, whose pathways and experiences are as important as they are specific. It’s also exciting that we have Dorothy Olet from Uganda doing her PhD on children’s palliative care”
The EOLinPLACE project is funded by the European Commission, through a European Research Council Starting Grant. Find out more about the project and the team here: www.eolinplace.com
Follow the project on twitter: @EOLinPLACE