Grant: CIHR Café Scientifique Program

The objective of the Café will be to make the latest Canadian research on Palliative Care accessible to the general public, encouraging Canadians from all sectors of society to engage CIHR health researchers, and contribute their views on current research and future directions on this topic. Palliative care is a growing concern for all Canadians, due to current demographic trends where a significant portion of the Canadian population is facing retirement age. The upcoming sharp increase of elderly people in the future will also require an increase of care facilities and resources, specifically palliative care, which is not widely available to or well understood by the general public in Canada. The deVeber Institute plans to have three experts who are at the forefront of palliative medicine research and care, these include Dr. William Sullivan, Dr. William Sullivan MD CCFP, PhD, Dr. Pierre Allard MD, and Dr. Jose Pereira MBChB, DA, CCFP, MSc(MEd). Each of these experts will provide Café Scientifique attendees with an overview of current palliative care practices, what are the needs of Canadian patients today and how we can best address these needs appropriately in the future. One of the main ways in which the proposed Café Scientifique will meet CIHR objectives is that the event will focus on a health topic that is pertinent to every Canadian, as every individual ages, the Café addresses these concerns by answering how will they be taken care of once they are older. Hence, the quality and validity of research presented by these Café experts, all active in this field, is invaluable through its impact on the health and lives of health care providers, users and all who attend.