Psychiatry Updates in Advanced Cancer and Life-limiting Illness ©

Virtual

Professor David Kissane, Consultant Psychiatrist in Psycho-Oncology and Palliative Care, Australia. Professor Kissane will speak about demoralization and psycho-existential symptom assessment in palliative care
Professor David William Kissane AC is an Australian consultation-liaison psychiatrist renowned for his research in Psycho-oncology, and Palliative Care. He holds the Chair in Palliative Medicine Research, School of Medicine, University of Notre Dame Australia.

For psycho-oncology, Kissane developed the widely used Demoralization Scale (DS), which measures a state of lowered morale and poor coping with illness or a stressful predicament, and the Shame and Stigma Scale (SSS) in disfiguring head and neck cancers.

For palliative care, he developed the Family Focused Grief Therapy (FFGT) to prevent complicated grief in dysfunctional families, and the Psycho-Existential Symptom Assessment Scale. He led trials of individual, group, couple, and family therapies in cancer care.

Professor John Wynn, Clinical Professor of Psychiatry, University of Washington School of Medicine. Professor Wynn will cover challenging personality traits and disorders in end of life care
Dr. John Wynn received a BA in Philosophy from Yale College and the MD degree from the University of Illinois. Residencies and board certification in Internal Medicine and Psychiatry were followed by faculty positions at UCLA (1989-91) and the University of Washington School of Medicine (1994- ), where he is a Clinical Professor in the Department of Psychiatry and Behavioral Sciences.
Dr. Wynn was founding Medical Director for PsychoOncology and Supportive Care Services at the Swedish Cancer Institute of Seattle (2000-2016), where he developed educational, supervisory and clinical services for patients, families and the staff that care for them.
Dr. Wynn’s private practice of Psychiatry has encompassed work with a wide variety of individuals, couples and families in office and hospital settings. He works with healthcare and other organizations on workplace leadership and collaboration and has lectured on a wide range of topics, including clinician well-being; mood and personality disorders; psychosomatics, mortality and the history of medicine.
Dr. Wynn has been listed in many “Best Doctors” lists over the years, and has been designated a Master Clinical Educator and a Distinguished Life Fellow of the American Psychiatric Association. His TED talk is available on youtube, and a recent series of patient interviews is at www.topic.com/the-view-from-here.

Dr Iain Jordan, Clinical Director Clerkenwell Health. Dr Jordan will discuss the use of psilocybin and other psychedelics in palliative care
Iain is Clinical Director of Clerkenwell Health, Europe's first specialist psychedelic clinical research site. He has worked as a psychiatrist and therapist in public health services for over 20 years, the last 10 years as a consultant in psychological medicine at Oxford University Hospitals NHSFT. Iain has recently developed The Clerkenwell Health Psychedelic Practitioner Training programme which he hopes will form a new paradigm for selecting and training practitioners for the next generation of physical and mental health services.

Dr Rachel Gibbons, Consultant Medical Psychotherapist. Dr Gibbons will help us understand how to work with patients in suicidal distress and the impact of suicide on clinicians
Dr Rachel Gibbons is a psychoanalyst, group analyst, consultant psychiatrist and organisational consultant. She consults widely to teams and individuals within the public and private health sector. She has successfully led many transformational and change processes in challenging environments.

Rachel was the National Director of Therapies for the Priory Group until 2020 where she provided strategic direction for the organisation and consultation to the therapy services in 100 hospitals across the UK. She is an experienced consultant psychiatrist and spent 20 years in the NHS in various leadership roles in different psychiatric settings that include: inpatient services, psychiatric intensive care wards (PICU), personality disorder teams, forensic, prison, hospital liaison, outpatient psychiatric, and psychotherapy services.

She worked and trained in organisational consultancy at the Tavistock Clinic. She credits her ability to thrive to three Tavistock Institute Leicester Conferences and many other group relations events. She writes, runs workshops and training on the nature of mental illness and self-destructive mental processes. She is a national expert on suicide and the effect that a death by suicide has on clinicians. She is currently the Chair of the Patient Safety Group and Working Group on the Effect of Suicide and Homicide on Psychiatrists at the Royal College of Psychiatrists.

Professor Wolfgang Grisold, Sspecialist for neurology and psychiatry
Prof. Dr. Wolfgang Grisold is a specialist for neurology and psychiatry. In neurology he has a background in neuropathology and neurophysiology. Special interests are general neurology, neurooncology, neuromuscular disease, education and patient related issues as pain, palliative care and advocacy. He is involved education and has been the initiator of the UEMS European board examination in neurology.

He has experience in hospital practice, research and private practice. He has participated in EU projects on paraneoplastic syndromes. The scientific focus is the effect of cancer on the peripheral nervous system, in particular in regard to peripheral neurotoxicity and the direct effects of cancer.

He works in an interprofessional setting in diagnosis and treatment of mononeuropathies including imaging (ultrasound) electrophysiology and plastic and reconstructive surgery.
He has authored and edited 30 books, and his pubmed count is presently 281 (https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/?term=grisold+w&sort=date).

He is member of several international neurological societies and has organized international neurological congresses, as the European Neuroncology Association Congress in Vienna (EANO, 2006), the World Congress of Neurology 2013, in Vienna, as the congress secretary, and the ICNMD in Vienna in 2018.
He is a trustee of the WFN since 2009 and was Secretary General from 2014-2021. Since 2022 he is the president of the World Federation of Neurology . His goals are the improvement of communication, the increase of impact of neurology worldwide, and the continuous evolution of the WFN in its global mission and role with an emphasis on educational projects.

Chairs

Dr Tom Bajorek, Consultant Psychiatry
Tomasz is a graduate of the University of Oxford and member of the Royal College of Psychiatrists. He is a senior fellow of the Higher Education Academy. He has completed higher medical training in the general adult, old age and liaison psychiatry and subsequently developed a career in neuropsychiatry and psychiatry of palliative care. He is currently a consultant psychiatrist working in neurosciences and palliative care in Oxford. His areas of clinical and academic interest include postgraduate education, epilepsy, autoimmune encephalitis, forensic neuropsychiatry and functional neurological disorder.

Dr Mary Miller, Consultant in Palliative Medicine, Sobell House - Honorary Senior Clinical Lecturer in Palliative Medicine, University of Oxford - Director OxCERPC (Oxford Centre for education and research in palliative care)
Dr Mary Miller qualified from University College Cork, Ireland in 1988. Mary trained and worked in palliative medicine in Ireland, Sweden and the UK and has been a consultant in palliative medicine in Oxford since 1998. Mary has a strong interest in education; completing a Diploma in Learning and Teaching at Oxford University 2005, was Training Programme Director and Regional Specialty Advisor (2002 – 2008) and has led the Oxford Advanced Courses in Pain and Symptom Management since 2005. Mary is an elected member of the Education Committee of the Association of Palliative Medicine and joint lead of the postgraduate education special interest forum. Since the inception of OxCERPC in 2017, Mary and the team are focusing on building an exciting portfolio of courses, building research readiness and reaching out to practitioners across the globe.

Please note: As speakers are joining us from Australia, UK and Washington we have an extended programme. Starting at 9am and finishing at 5pm.

09:00 Welcome and Introduction
09:05 Demoralization and psycho-existential symptom assessment in palliative care, Professor David Kissane
10:00 Break
10:15 How to work with patients in suicidal distress and the impact of suicide on clinicians, Dr Rachel Gibbons
11:00 LUNCH Break
13:00 Psilocybin and other psychedelics in palliative care, Dr Iain Jordan
14.00 Challenging behaviours in patients with brain tumours, Professor Wolfgang Grisold
15:00 Break
15:30 Challenging personality traits and Disorders in end-of-life Care, Prof John Wynn
17:00 Closing Remarks