18th Annual Mary O'Connor Palliative and Hospice Care Conference

Palliative Care: Passages, Gifts, and Messages

 

Calgary's annual Mary O'Connor Palliative and Hospice Care Conference offers an opportunity for health care providers from diverse backgrounds to come together to learn about current trends and gain new information regarding palliative care. The focus of this year's conference is finding and understanding the gifts and messages that emerge as death approaches. The keynote speaker is Maggie Callanan, an internationally renowned palliative care nurse, lecturer and author, who will discuss the remarkable experiences that people can have on their palliative journeys and how these experiences affect those who provide care.

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Plenary speaker, Serena Lewis, will discuss how different generations view death, dying and grief, and how this impacts our practice. The endnote speaker is Beve Stevenson, a veteran emergency room nurse and a stand-up comic who will talk about the importance and power of humour as a coping tool to deal with the intense emotions, conflict and change that is part of palliative care.

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The concurrent sessions will offer conference participants opportunities to deepen their knowledge of topics including palliative care for the homeless, coping with the caregiver’s own grief, models of compassion, the use of medical marijuana, complicated vs. complicating grief, and strengthening communication in palliative care.

 

A big hit last year, there will once again be a variety of poster presentations featuring numerous research projects about palliative and end of life care from across the Calgary Zone.

 

This conference continues to provide an opportunity for health care professionals to renew friendships, network, and increase understanding and awareness of some of the current issues surrounding palliative and hospice care. See you there!