Palliative Care Gala night and Professional Development Forum

Hi

I've just had an amazing couple of day's. I attended the NSW Palliative Care Gala night on 28th. It was held in the Holme building at Sydney University. It was a bit weird for me because it brought back powerful memories of me as a 20year old wandering around (1978-1980) the university with not much of clue trying to complete a fine art's degree. It just didn't happen I completed 2 years and dropped out. But so many good memories of friends and doing really silly things, fun things. Better to have loved and lost than never loved at all!!

The Holme building has that old style university feel, it reminds you of the "Hogwarts" panaled walls covered by old dark oil paintings ( Isaw a John Passmore which I liked) Panaled walls. On the back wall was a huge mural. It reminded me of Michelangelo's last Judgement, (without the judgement, angels, demon's and God) all about human progess through academic achievement despite all the hardship etc. It was a very grand setting.

James Valentine was the compare and he was very entertaining! He payed for a little while in his jazz ensemble. Linda Hanson (one of the organiser's) sang a beutiful "Georgia" The minister of Health was there John Della Bosca. He said that he had a 1954 Les Paul and that he should of brought it all long! I can't remember alll the categories for the awards but Dr Richard Chi the director of Sacred Heart Hospice in Darlinghurst got the award for innovation in Palliative Care.If you are really interested I think if you go to the Palliative Care NSW site (It's one of our links) they will probably post more details. It was lovely to see that Claudia Guigni and Sue Netherwood from our area nominated.

The education day was one of the best I'd attended it started off with a talk by Dr Frank Brennan on the role of Palliative Care in Renal medicine. We had talks from other prominant physicians, Pain Specialists, Intensive Care, interesting research on the impact of Loss and Grief on Palliative Care Staff, Paediatric Palliative Care, Pain Management in Patients with drug dependency and Advances in the treatment of Brain Metastases. It really highlighted for me the range and diversity of issues areas of medicine that palliative Care intersects with. The issues surrounding death and dying really are everyone's concern. The day was a huge success thanks to Joan Ryan and her team for all the hard work organising the day.

I spoke to Janeen Folfani about the Blog and what we were hoping to do to develop and expand it's potential. Janeen who through PEPA funding helps to promote Paliative Care through education, placements for health professionals and other events which promote the understanding of Palliative Care. She has agreed to help fund our writing workshops. That is so exciting!!

I better wrap, it's Saturday morning and my wife is trying to get everyone organised, house tidy so we can get on with the day. I'd love to hear from anyone interested in the blog, Christine has made it so easy to post a blog just click on the link! And if you get a chance have a go at completing the evaluations it will only take a few minutes and it will give us an indication as to how the blog is working for people. I've got to go.

Look forward from hearing from you!

James