INVITED KEYNOTE SPEAKERS




Dr. Eduardo Bruera, United States

Dr Bruera earned his medical degree at the University of Rosario (Argentina) in 1979. He completed his training in Medical Oncology and joined the University of Alberta and the Cross Cancer Institute in Edmonton (Canada) in 1984. Dr. Bruera became Professor of Oncology and The Alberta Cancer Foundation Chair in Palliative Care. In 1999 he became Professor of Medicine and the F.T. McGraw Chair in the Treatment of Cancer at The University of Texas M. D. Anderson Cancer Center (USA). 

Dr. Bruera has had a strong interest in the development of palliative care around the world. He has mostly worked on education, clinical development program development, and research in Latin America and the Caribbean. He collaborated for many years with the World Health Organization and the Pan American Health Organization as regional point for palliative care and as leader of a number of specific projects. Dr. Bruera has published more than 1200 peer reviewed papers, edited 35 books, given 900 lectures, and received 30 national and international awards. He has trained over the years hundreds of physicians who are currently practicing palliative care around the world.




Joan Marston, South Africa

With a background in Nursing, Sociology and Social Anthropology from the University of Kwazulu-Natal, Joan has been working in palliative care since 1989 at a local, national, and international level. With a special interest in paediatric palliative care (PPC) Joan first established the St Nicholas (now Sunflower) Children’s Hospice in Bloemfontein, South Africa in 1998, before setting up a South African national paediatric palliative care (PPC) development programme, and then  co-founding the International Children’s Palliative Care Network (ICPCN) in 2005 of which she was the first Chair and CEO. Joan has a deep interest in spirituality, culture and spiritual care of children.

Concerned about the lack of palliative care in humanitarian settings she then co-founded PallCHASE – Palliative Care in Humanitarian Aid Situations and Emergencies - and is on the Executive Committee leading on Advocacy. As the Vice-President of the Elisabeth Kübler-Ross Foundation Global Joan co-facilitates the EKRF South-Asian Fellowship programme. Joan teaches across a number of countries; is an Honorary Consultant to the Center of Palliative Medicine at the Kharkiv National Medical University in Ukraine; and is an honorary lecturer at the University of Cape Town. Happily married for many years to Richard, together they delight in their adult children and three beautiful grandsons.