Our Special Interest Workshops will be held on Thursday. They will be held over two sessions, 3 workshops running concurrently in the morning and 3 concurrently in the afternoon.
A workshop on Kidney Supportive Care (KSC) shall be conducted at the ANZSPM Conference in Launceston by the ANZSPM KSC Special Interest Group. The workshop will be suitable for junior and senior doctors working in Palliative Medicine. Topis shall include: an introduction to KSC, the role of Palliative Medicine in the care of kidney patients, decision-making around dialysis or a conservative pathway, symptom management in detail, advance care planning and care of the dying kidney patient. The Faculty will include leading experts in this area from the disciplines of Palliative Medicine and Nephrology.
The Session will include 6 x twenty minute sections as outlined below.
Objectives: To give ANZSPM delegates, junior and senior, an overview of Kidney Supportive Care with a particular focus on the role of Palliative Medicine working with Nephrology.
Introduction to Kidney Supportive Care (KSC)
What is it ?
What is the role of Palliative Care ?
International definitions of Kidney Supportive Care (KSC) and Conservative Kidney Management (CKM).
Brief overview of KSC services in Australasia
The KSC SIG
Decision-making around dialysis v CKM
Factors in weighing up this decision
If decided upon, what is the content of CKM?
Symptom management in patients with Chronic Kidney Disease (CKD)
Advance Care Planning in Nephrology
Care of the dying kidney patient
Including withdrawal from dialysis
Time
Presentation
Presenter
1000-1005
Introduction to Workshop
Acknowledgement of country
Sarah So
1010-1025
What is Kidney Supportive Care (and why is palliative care needed in nephrology?)
Role of KSC including managing symptom burden, ACP, withdrawal
KSC vs CKM
Frank Brennan and Kathryn Ducharlet
1025-1055
Serious illness conversations and communication skills in kidney care: shared decision-making (dialysis vs CKM) and advance care planning
Riona Pais
1055-1125
Difficult symptoms in CKD ? case-based
CKD associated pruritis
Pain (focus on calciphylaxis)
Restless legs syndrome
Sampath Kondasinghe
1125-1150
Dialysis withdrawal
Reasons for withdrawal, limitations of dialysis (RR)
Prognostication (EZ)
End of life care for end stage kidney disease (EZ)
Neuropalliative Care Workshop: Navigating Complex Symptoms and Decisions at the End of Life
Join experienced clinicians for an in‑depth and highly practical Neuropalliative Care Workshop, designed to equip you with clear frameworks and confidence when managing some of the most challenging scenarios in neurological illness, especially when patients are approaching the end of life.
This workshop will explore complex symptom management and decision‑making around, stridor and dysphagia, with a focused discussion on the evidence base—and real‑world role—of feeding tubes and tracheostomy in the contexts of neurodegenerative Diseases, including dementia, Motor Neurone Disease, Huntington’s Disease and other movement disorders.
Through expert-led case studies, participants will gain practical insights into navigating clinical uncertainty, aligning care with patient goals, and supporting patients and families through difficult conversations. The program will also highlight approaches to managing key symptoms such as chorea, dyskinesia and neuro-behavioral disturbance in movement disorders, including Parkinson’s Disease, especially as patients move into the late stages and and swallowing is compromised.
Whether you work in palliative care or primary care, this workshop offers clinically grounded, immediately applicable learning to enhance your practice caring for patients with progressive neurological diseases.
Presenters • Ms Ruth Hosken • Dr Aaron De Souza • Dr Sarah Lee • A/Prof Susan Mathers
Chair • A/Prof Fiona Runacres
Advance your skills. Deepen your understanding. Improve care for patients with complex neurodegenerative disease.
Do you find yourself arguing that we need more palliative medicine specialists? Then do you find you’re tasked with writing a business case for the same - a business case that gathers e-dust [i.e.it sits in a long-forgotten folder on your computer]?
There are other ways we can work when there is scarcity. Join this workshop. For 2-hours be in a community of colleagues who sense that we are wise to do something different because the need for palliative care exceeds our resources.
This ‘public health palliative care approach’ is not new. You will leave the workshop with language, ideas and skills [that you don’t know you already have] to make a difference in the workplace. Join us!
Respiratory - Breathing Well at Home: More than the Lungs
Different underlying pathologies in different organ systems can result in respiratory symptoms, increasingly in the same person, in the aging population. In line with the conference theme Creative Solutions: Thinking outside the Square, the Respiratory SIG once again collaborates with interdisciplinary and multiprofessional colleagues to explore what it takes to live well, breath well and die well for people living with different, often multiple, chronic diseases at home.
Program Schedule
Content
Breathing well at home
Facilitator Dr Chien-Che Lin - Chair, ANZSPM Respiratory Special Interest Group; General Practitioner and Palliative Medicine Specialist, Victoria, Australia
1:00~1:25pm Multi-professional management of respiratory symptoms at home - Tasmanian perspectives
Speakers (25 mins) Dr Maxine Glanger – Staff Specialist Ms Kate Lee-Archer – Social Worker Ms Kate Dunne – Occupational Therapist Specialist Palliative Care Service – North Tasmania, Australia
1:25~1:50pm Multi-professional management of respiratory symptoms at home - International perspectives
Speaker (25 mins) Dr Masanori Mori Director, Division of Palliative and Supportive Care Seirei Mikatahara General Hospital Hamamatsu, Japan
Question / short break / buffer time
(10 mins)
Thinking outside the square
Facilitator A/Prof Meg Sands - Co-Chair, ANZSPM Respiratory Special Interest Group; Senior Staff Specialist, Palliative Medicine | Supportive Care, Calvary Mater Newcastle; Conjoint Associate Professor, School of Clinical Medicine, Randwick Clinical Campus, UNSW Medicine, New South Wales, Australia
2:00~2:25pm Hospital in the Home (HITH) x Palliative Care - more than the sum of its parts
Speaker (25 mins) Dr Fiona Runacres Director, Palliative Care Services Monash Health Victoria, Australia
2:25~3:00pm Nasal Hi-Flow therapy at home – The New Frontier?
Speaker (15 mins) Dr Madeleine Kelly Advanced Trainee, Palliative Medicine | Supportive Care Calvary Mater Newcastle New South Wales, Australia
Panel (20 mins) Dr Fiona Runacres, Dr Madeline Kelly, Dr Meg Sands Dr Chien-Che Lin (facilitator)
Sharing Complexity: Hard Cases, Real Strategies for Palliative Care in Rural, Remote and Primary Practice (HYBRID)
Every clinician delivering palliative care in a community setting understands the uncertainties and inherent limitations. A patient clearly in their last months. Specialist palliative care may be limited, or available only by phone. Pharmacy access may be patchy. Practical in-home supports could be scarce. Everyone understands what is needed, but the roles, funding and responsibility for coordinating care remain unclear. Everybody does their best. Nobody is quite sure whose job it was.
These challenges sit at the intersection of ANZSPM’s Rural and Remote Palliative Medicine SIG and General Practice SIG.
The upcoming joint workshop, Sharing Complexity, is deliberately not a lecture. It is designed to accelerate a decade-long conversation forward, catalysed by increased awareness of current demands and shortcomings - as highlighted in recent statewide reports from Victoria and South Australia, for example.
Three short, challenging clinical cases from clinicians providing palliative care in the community provides the springboard for a facilitated panel and interactive floor discussion involving representatives from GP colleges, RACP, primary health networks and Aotearoa New Zealand.
A brief pre-workshop survey will go to registrants beforehand, asking what you most need and what would most help. Your answers shape the questions put to the panel. The session will be recorded, will be accessible later via the members-only section of the ANZSPM website
The ambition extends beyond the session itself: The intent is to forge greater collaboration and build a platform for continued advocacy. We want to leave Launceston with a network of champions willing to keep the conversation going in their own state, territory or region to modernise community based palliative care wherever it is delivered.
Bring your experience of what works—and what still doesn’t—where you practise.
The panellists and speaker for this event will include:
Dr Rosemary Ramsay — Co-Chair, ANZSPM Rural & Remote SIG (workshop convenor)
Dr Patrick (Paddy) Daly — Chair, ANZSPM GP SIG
Dr Alison Blight — Co-Chair, ANZSPM Rural & Remote SIG (panel facilitator)
Dr Ben Dodds — Rural Generalist; Board Director, Rural Doctors Association of Australia (RDAA)
Dr Toby Gardner — Chair, RACGP Tasmania
Dr Heidi Conway —GP and Palliative Care Specialist, Harbour Hospice, Auckland, NZ.
Dr Sam Greenwood —GP Adelaide SA.
Dr Erica Cameron-Taylor — Medical Director South Eastern NSW, COORDINARE PHN, and Senior Staff Specialist Palliative Care Southern NSW LHD
Dr Gauri Gogna — FAChPM Chair, RACP.
Dr Sonia Schutz — Chair of the palliative care SIG of Rural Doctors SA.
In this 2-hour interactive workshop we will be understanding 1) what spirituality is, reflecting on our own approach to patients and how it can impact on creating a safe space to share their own spiritual needs and concerns; 2) learning how to conduct a spiritual assessment; and 3) considering suffering, healing and the importance of spirituality in a worldview of someone who is dying. Facilitators will be Dr Alan Oloffs, Dr Shamsul Shah and Professor Melanie Lovell who have been involved in developing and facilitating the annual AChPM Spirituality Training for the RACP.
Please note that this workshop will be capped at 30 delegates.
