Post-release_summer _school

Knowledge and exchange for palliative care professionals: The International Summer School held in Armenia

You can read the post-release in Russian at the link

Fifty professionals from Armenia, Georgia, Latvia, Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan, and Uzbekistan met in Yerevan for the educational programme organised by PACED — The Foundation for Palliative Care Education. The core themes of the International Summer School included palliative care philosophy, mobile services, symptom management, communication skills, and development challenges for palliative care professionals in their countries.

«An important part of PACED Mission is to empower palliative care professionals through knowledge and skills, so the School programme included theoretical and practical formats. We brought together leading subject matter specialists from PACED’s countries of presence, all of whom face challenges to further develop palliative care in their countries. It was three days of productive, inspiring immersion into best practices. And we hope that participants will apply new skills to help patients and their loved ones after returning to their home countries»

Roman Sklotskiy

Managing Director, PACED

A survey conducted immediately after the School showed that the participants gained a lot of new information and significantly improved the quality of their knowledge, especially with regard to the organisation and work of mobile units and team support tools.

Photographer Yuri Fokin

The guest experts of the School included:

Dr Piret Paal, Austria-Estonia
Head of the Institute for Palliative Care, Paracelsus Medical University

Dr Paal led a track on the philosophy of palliative care, quality indicators, and decision-making principles. She also shared successful examples and discussed various forms of care and their specific features. Finally, she provided practical advice on caring for medical staff.

Dr Hökkä deepened the participant's knowledge of the principles of patient monitoring, pain and psychosocial symptom management. As a practitioner, she helped the participants get the tools for everyday work with patients.

Dr Minna Hökkä, Finland
Registered Nurse, PhD in nursing sciences, Board member of the European Association for Palliative Care

Vaghinak Ter-Hovhannisyan, Armenia
Human rights activist, lawyer, researcher, a member of the Monitoring group in Mental health centres of the Ministry of Health Republic of Armenia

Vaghinak Ter-Hovhannisyan told about how Armenian legislation regulates the provision of the population with opioid analgesics and the difficulties that specialists and patients face. He also told about the specifics of financing the palliative care system.

Anna Gorchakova discussed with the participants the principles of careful communication with patients and their relatives in different situations.

Anna Gorchakova, Belarus
Director of the Belarusian Children's Hospice

Nyuta Federmesser, Russia
founder of the VERA Hospice Charity Fund
&
Ekaterina Ovsyannikova, Russia
Director of the charitable private medical оrganisation «Hospice at Home»

Both experts shared real experience and insights in organising palliative care mobile units — from team composition to documentation, equipment, and building workflows. The training with a simulated patient helped participants understand how to apply this knowledge in practice.

The PACED team also extends its gratitude to:

Palliative Care Clinic at the V. A. Fanarjian National Centre of Oncology and personally to Arshaluys Hovhannisyan, Director of the Clinic for organising the visit during the Summer School

Saryan House-Museum
for their hospitality and for allowing us to use Martiros Saryan's paintings in the School's illustrations.

The International Summer School is part of PACED educational activities. The foundation’s team also supports palliative care specialists through webinars, digests of international materials and news about palliative care, and professional mobility grants.

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