8th International Advance Care Planning (ACP-i) Conference

Speakers

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Keynote Speakers

Keynote 1: Partnership with Communities: A New Starting Point

Heather-Richardson-ACP-i-2023-Keynote-Speaker1

HEATHER RICHARDSON

Heather Richardson currently works as the Director of Education, Research and End of Life Policy at St Christopher’s Hospice. She previously worked as Joint Chief Executive, then CEO of St Christopher’s over a period of eight years. In the past she has held the role of National Clinical Lead for Hospice UK, and worked as Clinical Director, then Strategy Advisor to St. Joseph’s Hospice in East London prior to her move at St Christopher’s. She has also worked as an associate with the Innovation Unit based in London.

Heather is a registered general and mental health nurse and has worked in hospice/palliative care since 1988. She has a PhD, her research concerned with users’ experience of day hospice. More recently she has developed a research interest around public health and end of life care and is involved in global programmes of learning for palliative care leaders. She currently serves as an honorary professor in palliative care at Lancaster University and has recently joined Harris Manchester College in Oxford as a Senior Research Fellow. In the past she has received the International Palliative Nurse of the Year award issued by the International Journal of Palliative Nursing and other awards related to her role in innovation in healthcare.

Keynote 2: Public Health Approach to Integrate ACP in Hong Kong

Amy Chow ACP-i 2023 Keynote Speaker 2

AMY CHOW

Professor Chow is the Si Yuan Professor in Health and Social Work and the Head of the Department of Social Work & Social Administration of the University of Hong Kong. She is also the Master of the University’s New College. She has a background as a registered social worker specialising in bereavement counselling and is the founder of the first community-based bereavement counselling centre in Hong Kong. She formerly served as the Chairperson of the prestigious International Workgroup on Death, Dying and Bereavement, Secretary of the Association for Death Education and Counseling (ADEC) and Board Member of the Asia Pacific Hospice Network (APHN).

As a recognised translational scientist in thanatology, Professor Chow got different awards in research, teaching and practice. Currently, Professor Chow is the Director of the Jockey Club End-of-Life Community Care Project. She is also the Chairperson of the Steering Committee of the Hong Kong Academy of Social Work.

Invited Speakers

ACP-i2023 Speaker - Andrew Pang

Andrew Pang

Categories: Invited Speakers

Andrew is the founder of leading design consultancy, Lavaworks and Live.Love.Life., a social enterprise that partners with Senior Care facilities to co-create meaningful experiences for Seniors. Prior to this, he was the managing partner of an integrated design agency with offices in Singapore and China.

Andrew serves on board the Presidential advisory Commission of Design Business Chamber Singapore, having helmed the Chamber from 2018 to 2021. He also co-chaired in DesignS- an alliance of Design Associations in Singapore and was a board member of the Scientific Advisory Board of Singapore University of Technology and Design- MIT International Design Centre.

A strong advocate of the local design industry, he served actively in other design-related bodies such as DesignSingapore Council’s Industry Development Panel, Board of Examiners for the Building and Construction Authority (BCA) and Singapore Furniture Industries Council (SFIC). It was during his time serving on the board of SFIC that Andrew co-founded SingaPlural- an anchor event of Singapore Design Week.

Well-regarded as an influential thought leader, Andrew has been invited as juror and speaker on both local and international platforms like Japan Good Design Awards, Singapore Good Design and the Global Design Talent Festival.

Andrew Pang

Prof. Andy Ho Profile

Andy Hau Yan HO

Categories: Invited Speakers

Dr Andy Hau Yan HO, PhD, EdD, MFT is a psychologist, social scientist, and educator who specializes in public health and mental health, thanatology, gerontology, integrative psychotherapy, and community empowerment. He is the President of the Association of Death Education and Counseling (ADEC), and Board Director of the International Work Group on Death, Dying and Bereavement (IWGDDB). He is also Head of Psychology, and Associate Professor of Psychology and Medicine at Nanyang Technological University, Singapore. Dr Ho has founded numerous internationally acclaimed psycho-socio-spiritual interventions for promoting holistic wellness among general and clinical populations, some of which include Family Dignity Intervention (FDI) for advancing holistic palliative care; Mindful-Compassion Art-based Therapy (MCAT) for burnout prevention; and Aspiration and Resilience through Intergenerational Storytelling and Art-based Narrative (ARTISAN) for loneliness alleviation. A prolific author and researcher, his social and scholarly contributions are recognized with distinction by academic, professional and government bodies around the world.

Andy Hau Yan HO

ACP-i2023 Speaker - Ang Ziqian

Ang Ziqian

Categories: Invited Speakers

Mr Ang Ziqian started in the funeral profession at the age of 13. Today, he is the Managing Director of the Ang Chin Moh Group. He has served over 3,000 families as the 4th generation funeral director of one of Singapore’s most established funeral companies.

Ang lives life meaningfully because he recognizes that death is the finality of life. This gives him urgency to create many firsts in the funeral profession in Singapore. He introduced new methods of memorialization like the Algordanza Memorial Diamond and dignified funeral service halls with his Mount Vernon Sanctuary. As the founder of Ang Chin Moh Foundation, he spearheaded initiatives on end-of-life conversations and advocates strongly for funeral professionalism. He strongly believes in the pre-planning of one’s own funeral.

Ang is a visionary. He is on a mission to upgrade overall standards, services, and facilities of the funeral profession.

Ang Ziqian

Bud-Hammes profile

Bernard “Bud” Hammes

Categories: Invited Speakers

Dr Hammes served as the Director of Medical Humanities and Respecting Choices for the Gundersen Health System in La Crosse, WI from 1984 until 2018. In this position he provided education programs for house staff, as well as medical, nursing and physician assistant students. He also provided in-services and workshops for the medical staff, nursing staff, social workers, and the pastoral care department. Dr. Hammes chaired both the Institutional Review Board and Ethics Committee. For the institutional ethics committee, he served the role of ethics consultant. From 2018 to 2020, Dr. Hammes served as the Executive Director of Respecting Choices which had become a free standing not-for-profit. Currently Dr. Hammes is the Executive Director Emeritus of Respecting Choices.   

Dr. Hammes’s work has been primarily focused on improving care at the end-of-life. To this end he developed institutional policies and practices, staff education, and patient/community education with a special focus on advance care planning. This work resulted in two nationally recognized programs on advance care planning: If I Only Knew… and Respecting Choices®. He has authored or coauthored 43 articles and book chapters that are focused on clinical ethics, advance care planning, and end-of-life issues. 

Bernard “Bud” Hammes

Carole Montgomery Profile

 Carole Montgomery

Categories: Invited Speakers

Dr. Carole Montgomery is executive medical director and a Senior Faculty Consultant with Respecting Choices. She is a board-certified Internal Medicine physician with over 20 years’ experience practicing hospital-based and post-acute medicine and another 8 years in executive leadership positions. 

Before joining Respecting Choices, she provided executive leadership in a large integrated health system where she was responsible for development of population health management programs focused on integrating care across settings and specialties. In addition to standardizing clinical best practice, objectives included driving reliable patient engagement through standard education, shared decision making, and advance care planning. 

Montgomery earned her medical degree from Michigan State University College of Human Medicine. She completed her internship and internal medical residency at Butterworth Hospital, Grand Rapids, Michigan. She earned her master’s degree in health management and policy from the University of Michigan’s School of Public Health. 

 Carole Montgomery

Chan Mei Yoke- ACP-i 2023 Speaker

Chan Mei Yoke

Categories: Invited Speakers

Associate Professor Chan Mei Yoke graduated from the National University of Singapore with a Bachelor of Medicine and Bachelor of Surgery. She trained in Paediatrics in Singapore and subspecialised in Paediatric Haematology/Oncology in Royal Marsden Hospital and Great Ormond Street Hospital in London, United Kingdom. She has an interest in Paediatric Palliative Care and helped set up a comprehensive paediatric palliative care service in KK Women’s and Children’s Hospital (KKH) in Singapore in 2004. She also has a keen interest in medical ethics due to the nature of her work.

She is currently a Senior Consultant in Paediatric Haematology/Oncology and Paediatric Palliative Care and is the Chair of the Clinical Ethics Committee in KKH.

Chan Mei Yoke

ACP-i2023 Speaker - Charless Dupont

Charlèss Dupont

Categories: Invited Speakers

Charlèss Dupont is a PhD candidate at the End-of-Life Care Research Group based at Vrije Universiteit Brussel and Ghent University in Belgium. She has a background in nursing, communication, and health policy. Her research focuses on advance care planning for people living with dementia, communication at the end of life and palliative care for people with dementia. Her PhD research is centered around the use of technology for people with dementia and their families to support advance care planning conversations.

Charlèss Dupont

Cheng-Pei Lin

Categories: Invited Speakers

Cheng-Pei is an oncology nurse and palliative care researcher, originally from Taiwan. He has been undertaking palliative care research and clinical practice for people living with life-threatneing illness for more than ten years. Cheng-Pei completed his BSc and MSc in Nursing at National Cheng Kung University in 2014 and successfully pursued his doctorate training in palliative care at the Cicely Saunders Institute of Palliative Care, Policy and Rehabilitation, King’s College London, United Kingdom during 2016-2020. His research interests is in advance care planning, medical decision-making at end-of-life, research methodology in palliative care, and global evlauation studies.

Cheng-Pei is now the principal inverstigator for a three-year project on developing interventions to imporve community elderly readiness to engage in advance care planning in Taiwan spondored by National Science and Technology Council. He is now serving as assistant professor in nursing at Institute of Community Health Care, College of Nursing, National Yang Ming Chiao Tung University, Taiwan, and also appointed as the visiting research fellow at Cicely Saunders Institute of Palliaitve Care, Policy and Rehabilitation, King’s College London.

Cheng-Pei Lin

Chetna-Malhotra profile

Chetna Malhotra

Categories: Invited Speakers

Chetna Malhotra is an Assistant Professor and Deputy Director (Research) at Lien Centre for Palliative Care and Program in Health Services and Systems Research, Duke-NUS Medical School, Singapore. She is a physician-researcher specializing in Public Health and Community Medicine. She has more than a decade of experience conducting health services research in the area of end-of-life care for patients with advanced serious illnesses including those with advanced cancer, heart failure and dementia, with the goal of improving the delivery of palliative care services to these populations. She evaluated the implementation of Singapore’s advance care planning program. She received the Clinician Scientist Award by Singapore’s National Medical Research Council for her work related to advance care planning. Her research has been published in leading clinical, palliative care and geriatric journals. She mentors graduate and medical students in conducting palliative care research.

Chetna Malhotra

Diah-Martina profile

 Diah Martina

Categories: Invited Speakers

Diah Martina is a faculty staff at the Division of Psychosomatic and Palliative Medicine, Department of Internal Medicine, Faculty of Medicine Universitas Indonesia, and a medical staff in the academic top-referral national general hospital ̶ Cipto Mangunkusumo Hospital, Indonesia. She did her Palliative Care Fellowship in 2017 in Erasmus MC Cancer Institute as part of the ESMO Fellowship Award Program and became the first Indonesian recipient of an International Development and Education Award in Palliative Care (IDEA-PC) from the American Society of Clinical Oncology (ASCO). Her research focus and interest are mainly on palliative care, serious illness communication, cultural sensitivity, spirituality, and capacity building. Diah takes part in many international research collaborations with Asian countries, Europeans, USA and Africa. She had published several publications, including a declaration of advance care planning in Asia. Diah also actively contributes as a council member for ASCO Asia Pacific Regional Council.

 Diah Martina

ACP-i2023 Speaker - Erik Fromme

Erik K. Fromme

Categories: Invited Speakers

Erik Fromme, MD, MCR is a Senior Scientist and Lead Faculty for the Serious Illness Care Program at Ariadne Labs, a joint center for healthcare delivery innovation between the Harvard School of Public Health and the Brigham and Women’s Hospital. The Program’s mission is ensuring that timely, good quality communication about patients’ values and goals happens for every seriously ill patient.

Dr. Fromme is a nationally recognized expert in advance care planning, serious illness communication, and POLST (Portable Orders for Life Sustaining Treatment). Dr. Fromme practices palliative medicine at Dana-Farber Cancer Institute and is an Associate Professor of Medicine at Harvard Medical School. He also chairs the National POLST Research and Quality Assurance Committee and the Massachusetts MOLST to POLST Advisory Committee.

Erik K. Fromme

Georg-Marckmann-ACP-i-2023-Speaker

Georg Marckmann

Categories: Invited Speakers

Prof. Georg is currently a Professor of Medical Ethics and Director at the Institute of Ethics, History and Theory of Medicine in Ludwig-Maximilians-University Munich, since 2010. Besides attaining his doctoral degree in medicine in 1997, Prof. Georg has also attained his Master of Public Health from the Harvard School of Public Health in 2000. In 1992, he was awarded a scholarship of German Research Foundation at the University of Tuebingen’s postgraduate college “Ethics in the Sciences and Humanities”. In his professional lifetime, Prof. Georg worked to publish articles ranging from topics such as healthcare for the old age, paediatric research, language processing in aphasia to donor shortage.

Georg Marckmann

ACP-i2023 Speaker - Helen Chan

Helen Yue-Lai Chan

Categories: Invited Speakers

Professor Helen Chan, RN, PhD, FAAN, is a pioneer in promoting ACP in Chinese communities. Over the years, she has conducted a number of research studies to evaluate the effects of advance care planning among frail older adults, patients with progressive diseases and family caregivers across hospitals, nursing homes and community care.

Helen Chan has also developed different kinds of educational materials for raising awareness and building community capacity to support the implementation of advance care planning. These works have been disseminated through publication and social media at local, regional and international level and adopted to inform policy development. She has been appointed as honorary advisor for relevant service developments in various non-governmental organizations.

Helen Yue-Lai Chan

Ester Ho Profile

Ho Peiying Esther

Categories: Invited Speakers

Dr Esther Ho is a Consultant with the Department of Geriatric Medicine, Tan Tock Seng Hospital.

Her areas of interest include Dementia, Advance Care Planning and Clinical Ethics.  

Ho Peiying Esther

Hsien Seow

Categories: Invited Speakers

Dr. Hsien Seow, PhD (Johns Hopkins), BSc (Yale), is the Canada Research Chair in Palliative Care and Health System Innovation and an Associate Professor in the Department of Oncology, McMaster University. He publishes health care and policy research focused on improving care for patients with serious illness.

His research expertise is in the development and evaluation of community-based models of palliative care, provider and clinician education, and palliative care quality indicators. His research website is: www.palliativecareinnovation.com. He is the co-host of the podcast: www.waitingroomrevolution.com 

Hsien Seow

ACP-i2023 Speaker - James Alvin Low

James Alvin Low

Categories: Invited Speakers

A/Prof James Low is the Knowledge Translation Lead at Geriatric Education and Research Institute (GERI).

He is also a Senior Consultant of Geriatric Medicine and Palliative Care, Lead Clinician of the Long-Term Care and Advance Care Planning Office, Chairman of the Clinical Ethics Committee at Khoo Teck Puat Hospital and member of the ACP National Steering Committee.

His main areas of interest are in geriatric medicine, palliative care, ethics, communications, telemedicine, nursing homes, spirituality and advance care planning. He has been working on advance care planning with various stakeholders such as Ministry of Health, Agency for Integrated Care and other hospitals over the years as part of the Advance Care Planning National Steering Committee.

James Alvin Low

James Jay Joseph profile

James (Jay) Joseph

Categories: Invited Speakers

Dr. Joseph is a board-certified family physician, Medical Director of Geisinger Hospice and Geisinger at Home Palliative Care Service through which he provides patient care in the home setting throughout rural Pennsylvania.  As Geisinger Respecting Choices® Faculty, he is leading a system-wide strategy to transform care to a more person-centered approach.  He is faculty for Geisinger’s Palliative Medicine fellowship and for Geisinger Commonwealth School of Medicine. 

Prior to his current roles, Dr. Joseph practiced primary care family medicine for 20 years, first with the U.S. Army, then in rural Pennsylvania.  He served on the Board of the Pennsylvania Academy of Family Physicians and is past President of The Bloomsburg Hospital medical staff.   

Dr. Joseph earned his bachelor’s degree from Penn State University, his medical degree from the Sidney Kimmel Medical College at Thomas Jefferson University, and his master’s degree in palliative care from the University of Maryland. 

James (Jay) Joseph

James Norris

Categories: Invited Speakers

James is an ‘end of life technologist’. He consults various governmental and non-governmental organizations in areas relating to death and the internet. He often provides thought leadership in areas relating to death, bereavement, technology in different formats. James’ appearances and publications range from BBC Breakfast and the New Scientist to the British Medical Journal and the Queen Latifah Show.

MyWishes is an end of life planning software that empowers the general public to document and share their advance care plans and wider end of life preferences. The Digital Legacy Association is the global association dedicated to improving awareness and standards in areas relating to digital asset planning and digital legacy safeguarding.

James is the digital research fellow at Michael Sobell Hospice. He recently undertook the Fellowship in Palliative Care programme in 2021 and the Palliative Care Masterclass in 2022. Both were developed and facilitated by St Christopher’s Hospice (UK) and the Institute of Palliative Medicine (India).

James Norris

Jenny Hynson profile

Jenny Hynson

Categories: Invited Speakers

Associate Professor Jenny Hynson is Head of the Victorian Palliative Care Program, a state-wide service for children with palliative care needs. She was a founding member of the Children’s Bioethics Centre at the Royal Children’s Hospital in Melbourne. With over 20 years’ experience in paediatric palliative care, she is now the Secretary of Paediatric Palliative Care Australia and New Zealand.

Associate Professor Jenny has completed a PhD and contributed to a number of major international texts and journal articles in the field of children’s palliative care. In 2021, Jenny was awarded the Royal Australasian College of Physicians Chapter of Palliative Medicine Award for Outstanding Contribution by a Fellow to the discipline of Palliative Medicine.

Jenny Hynson

Jenny van der Steen

Categories: Invited Speakers

Jenny van der Steen is an epidemiologist researching how to improve care at the end of life of people with dementia and their family caregivers. The research uses quantitative, qualitative and mixed methods, often employing parallel methodological and international work. Ongoing research includes development and evaluation of different strategies and tools for advance care planning, and advance care planning in dementia in both the nursing home and community settings.

She leads the European Association for Palliative Care (EAPC) task force on advance care planning in dementia, developing a white paper to conceptualize advance care planning in dementia, to promote inclusiveness and to provide guidance for practice, policy and research.

Jenny van der Steen

Jia-Ying-Tay-ACP-i-2023-Speaker

Jia Ying Tay

Categories: Invited Speakers

Jiaying (she/her) started her exploration into end-of-life work in 2013 through her involvement as a producer with Both Sides, Now, an arts-based community engagement project on end-of-life issues. After seven years working with the community, she founded Happy Ever After to connect directly with individuals to support them and their loved ones in navigating the complexities of life and death, love and loss, hopes and fears, laughter and tears.

She is a certified end-of-life doula with The Dying Year, and a certified Respecting Choices® 1st Steps Advance Care Planning facilitator. She is also a member of the National End-of-life Doula Alliance (NEDA), and is NEDA proficient.

Jia Ying Tay

ACP-i2023 Speaker - Jun Lau

Jun Lau

Categories: Invited Speakers

Leaving a high-flying job in banking, Jun took a job developing talents, across industries, in a management consulting firm. She quickly realised that IQ wasn’t the only thing separating the talented professionals from those who struggled. Today, she will share with us how design thinking has helped one of her client organisations to uncover human insights and identify opportunities for innovation.

Jun has led design research projects in both private, public and social services sectors. Jun believes that good design can change the world and impact communities for good. Her primary gerontological research interest is in the area of end-of-life care and managing transitions in the context of lifespan human development.

Jun Lau

ACP-i2023 Speaker - Keri Thomas

Keri Thomas

Categories: Invited Speakers

As Founder of the UK’s Gold Standards Framework (GSF) Centre in End-of-Life Care (EOLC) and Lead for GSF International, Keri is regarded as “one of the most influential people in the field of EOLC, nationally and internationally”. Formerly as National Clinical Lead Palliative/EOLC, RCGP EOLC Lead and Hon Professor, GSF was spread across the UK (98% GP practices GSF trained by 2009, thousands trained in multiple settings) influencing national policy and improving EOLC provision. 25 years on, GSF remains the UK’s leading EOLC training provider for generalist frontline teams.

As founder member of the first international ACP group, she hosted the 2nd international London meeting in 2011, and co-edited 2 editions of ‘Advance Care Planning in End of Life Care’. Keri’s awards include an OBE from the Queen for services to EOLC, RCGP President’s Medal, but her greatest achievements are as wife, mother of 5 children and 4 grandchildren.

Keri Thomas

Kerrie Noonan ACP-i2023-speaker

Kerrie Noonan

Categories: Invited Speakers

Dr Kerrie Noonan is a Clinical Psychologist and social researcher, innovator and founder. Over the past 25 years, Kerrie has been working to create a more death literate society and has a long-standing interest in community capacity building approaches to death, dying and bereavement, palliative care and how people can build their grief and death literacy.

She is currently the Director of Research in Western NSW Local Health District. She holds a PhD in from the School of Social Sciences and Psychology, Western Sydney University. Kerrie has a graduate Certificate in Business Administration from Griffith University and is fellow of the Sydney School for Social Entrepreneurs.

Kerrie is the co-creator of multiple initiatives including The GroundSwell Project with Dr Peta Murray, Dying to Know Day and the Bereavement Companion Program. Kerrie is a member of the Caring at End of Life Research team at Western Sydney University and an investigator on the Death Literacy Index project. She has held numerous board and advisory positions locally and internationally in public health palliative care and organisations whose mission is related to death and grief literacy, including Public Health Palliative Care International.

Kerrie Noonan

Libby Sallnow Profile

Libby Sallnow

Categories: Invited Speakers

Dr Libby Sallnow is a palliative medicine consultant with CNWL NHS Trust in London, UK, an honorary senior clinical lecturer at St Christopher’s Hospice and the UCL Marie Curie Palliative Care Research Department, UK and a post-doc researcher and guest professor at the Vrije Universiteit Brussel (VUB), Belgium. She has helped lead and develop the fields of new public health approaches to end of life care, compassionate communities and social approaches to death, dying and loss over the past two decades in the UK and internationally.

Her PhD explored the translation of a model of compassionate communities from Kerala, India to London, UK. She has published a number of articles and book chapters in these fields and co-edited the book “International perspectives on public health and palliative care” in 2011. She is an Honorary Consultant at the WHO Collaborating Centre for Palliative Care in Kerala, India, Vice President of Public Health Palliative Care International, the President of the Palliative Care Section of the Royal Society of Medicine, UK, and the first author of the new Lancet Commission on the Value of death: bringing death back into life (2022).

Libby Sallnow

Luke Kang Kwong

Categories: Invited Speakers

Dr. K.K. Luke is President’s Chair Professor of Linguistics at Nanyang Technological University, Singapore. His research is on talk and social interaction using Ethnomethodology and Conversation Analysis. He has done work with data collected from China and Hong Kong, mostly of interactions in informal settings of family and friends. His more recent work focuses on doctor-patient interaction in a number of clinics in Singapore, where issues of empathy, multi-party interaction, and patient-centred care are explored. 

Luke Kang Kwong

Mark Taubert

Categories: Invited Speakers

Professor Mark Taubert is a palliative medicine hospital consultant and clinical director at Velindre University NHS Trust. His teaching/research activities at Cardiff University include advance & future care planning, acute palliative care, technology & new media and DNACPR decision making.

He is the founder of TalkCPR.com and has a national lead role to improve public understanding on topics relevant to care in the last years of life and at the extreme ends of medicine. He has delivered a Ted Talk on subtleties in language that are relevant to modern healthcare delivery, and writes for international news outlets like the Washington Post, where his article was a top pick for 2019.

A few years ago he wrote a public letter to the singer David Bowie, which discussed the importance of good palliative care and advance care planning. It went viral online and in global newsrooms, and was read out by the likes of Benedict Cumberbatch and Jarvis Cocker. His Twitter handle is @ProfMarkTaubert

Mark Taubert

Masanori-Mori profile

Masanori Mori

Categories: Invited Speakers

Dr. Masanori Mori is a director of the Division of Palliative and Supportive Care at Seirei Mikatahara General Hospital in Hamamatsu, Japan. His research interests include symptom management, clinician-patient communication, and advance care planning (ACP) especially in the context of Asian culture. He is lead investigator on multiple international and national research projects including a Delphi study on ACP in Asia and the East Asian cross-cultural collaborative Study to Elucidate the Dying process (EASED). He has been involved in the clinical practice guidelines on clinician-patient communication and ACP in Japan. He is also a member of various academic societies including the Asia Pacific Hospice Palliative Care Network (APHN, vice chair).

Masanori Mori

Melvin Tan - Acp-i 2023 Speaker

Melvin Tan

Categories: Invited Speakers

Melvin has close to 25 years of experience in communications across various industries in the public and private sectors, having worked in both the media and strategic communications functions. Currently, he is the Chief Communications Officer at KK Women’s and Children’s Hospital and CCO for Capability and Professional Development at SingHealth. He is also concurrently appointed as the Director of Group Development at SingHealth, leading in the cluster’s advancement and development efforts to drive philanthropic support for its various causes.

Melvin started his career as a radio producer and broadcast journalist, with experience as a features writer and producer in the production of documentaries for broadcast. He has been involved in media management, crisis communication, marketing communications, internal and external stakeholder engagement, public affairs and reputation building. He has also conducted crisis & media training and provided strategic communications counsel for public sector organisations and multinationals in Singapore and the region.

Melvin volunteers at a few voluntary welfare organisations (VWOs). He is a Council Member at Club Rainbow Singapore (CRS) and serves as the Vice-Chairman at the Eagles Mediation and Counselling Centre (EMCC).

Melvin Tan

s

Ngiam Su-Lin

Categories: Invited Speakers

Su-Lin has been active in the Singapore arts scene for close to two decades, specifically in the areas of education, community, creative producing and interdisciplinary collaborations. She has worked with various arts organisations before co-founding ArtsWok in 2013.

Su-Lin has produced community theatre and festivals in collaboration with the public, people and private sectors, and worked with numerous schools, social service, community and health organisations to incorporate arts processes and approaches into their programmes, including the development and writing of training toolkits. She has also developed and facilitates capability development programmes and initiatives on arts-based community development. She is also a trained counsellor and believes that being human and fully alive is to be in life-giving relationships with one’s self, and others, in community.

Ngiam Su-Lin

ACP-i2023 Speaker - Nongluck Pussayapibul

Nongluck Pussayapibul (“Nink”)

Categories: Invited Speakers

Ms Nongluck Pussayapibul (“Nink”) is the Senior Manager of Knowledge Translation and part of the management team at the Geriatric Education and Research Institute (GERI).

She is passionate about applying her diverse experience and skills from private sector into areas that serve the ageing population. Her formal trainings include an MBA at the University of North Carolina, USA, MA in social policy at the University of York, UK, and MPhil at City University London, where her area of focus was on research and evaluation of the government’s strategy to enhance quality of life in older persons.

Nink has been working on projects related to ageing in the past 20 years, ranging from promoting active ageing, health professional education, education research, and quality of life issues among seniors in the community. Her current interest is in implementing evidence-based solutions to improve the wellbeing of older persons in a sustainable way.

Nongluck Pussayapibul (“Nink”)

Prof-Philip-Yap_Profile

Philip Yap Lin Kiat

Categories: Invited Speakers

Philip Yap is a senior consultant geriatrician & care palliative physician from the Dept of Geriatric Medicine, KTPH. He concurrently holds a joint appointment in the Geriatric Education & Research Institute. He is also an Adjunct Assoc Professor in Yong Loo Lin School of Medicine, NUS, as well as Lee Kong Chian School of Medicine NTU. 

His interests lie in dementia & frailty, improving quality of life & quality of care for seniors, and the psychosocial aspects of care, in particular working with caregivers & end-of-life conversations. 

Philip Yap Lin Kiat

Samuel-Guma Profile

Samuel Guma

Categories: Invited Speakers

Dr Samuel Guma is the Executive Director and one of the founding members of Kawempe Home Care, a private non-profit charity organization that was started in July 2007 by a group of devoted health professionals to provide free comprehensive care to people with HIV/ AIDS and Cancer in Kawempe division Kampala, Uganda. Their focus is to ensure constant improvement to the quality of life of their patients through the provision of compassionate holistic care by a multidisciplinary team of health professionals.

His future goals are to actively involved in spreading palliative care all over Africa through project development, research and training of health professionals. He also hopes to develop the organisation into a centre of excellence for provision of home based palliative care and home based palliative care training centre for health professionals.

Samuel Guma

Srivieng Pairojkul Profile

Srivieng Pairojkul

Categories: Invited Speakers

Associate professor Srivieng Pairojkul is head of Karunruk Palliative Care Center, an excellent center which provides palliative care service to all patients in Srinagarind Hospital, the largest referral center in the Northeast of Thailand. Karunruk is also the national training center for palliative care in Thailand. She has implemented a scaling up education for different health professionals in palliative care, which resulted in strong networks amongst regions of Thailand. She is the president of Thai Palliative Care Society and Thai Palliative Care Network, which have been working with the Ministry of Public Health to energize the National policy and service system on palliative care including education and promotion of opioid accessibility. She also works with many NGOs on building awareness of palliative care and advance care planning.

Srivieng Pairojkul

Sun-Hyun Kim

Categories: Invited Speakers

After graduating from Yonsei University, she has been teaching medical students at the Catholic Kwandong University. She is one of the research member of the East Asian cross-cultural collaborative Study to Elucidate the Dying process (EASED) and  Delphi study on advance care planning in EAST Asia. She served as the research director of the Korean Society for Hospice and Palliative Care and the president of the Korean Palliative Medicine Research Network.

She served as a member of the Ethics Committee, and the secretary of the Training and Examination Committee of the Korean Society for Hospice and Palliative Care and as chair of the Hospice Palliative Care special committee of the Korean Academy of Family Medicine.

She is eager to educate students about hospice-palliative care and ACP. She was recognized for her contribution to hospice and palliative care and received the Minister of Health and Welfare award in 2019.

Sun-Hyun Kim

Susan-Hickman Profile

Susan Hickman

Categories: Invited Speakers

Susan Hickman, PhD, is a geropsychologist, Professor in the Indiana University (IU) School of Nursing and IU School of Medicine, Cornelius and Yvonne Pettinga Chair in Aging Research, and Director of the IU Center for Aging Research at Regenstrief Institute, Inc.. She has been educating and conducting research on advance care planning and end-of-life decision making with a focus on the nursing facility since 1998.

Dr. Hickman is currently the Co-Principal Investigator on a National Institute on Aging pragmatic randomized clinical trial to evaluate an advance care planning program for the caregivers of nursing home residents with Alzheimer’s Disease and related dementias as well as a bioethics supplement to explore family experiences with these conversations. Dr. Hickman is also a co-investigator on two trials that include advance care planning interventions and recently completed a study evaluating the quality of advance care planning decisions in the nursing facility setting by assessing concordance between current preferences and existing documentation.

 

Susan Hickman

Tammy Pegg

Categories: Invited Speakers

Tammy graduated from the University of Leeds in 2000 and completed basic medical training in the UK prior to studying for a PhD at Oxford University.  Her research examined the effects of surgical revascularisation on myocardial function and injury and was shortlisted for the Vivien Thomas American Heart Association prize for research into cardiovascular surgery and New Zealand young investigator of the year (2009).  Tammy moved to New Zealand in 2009 where she works as a consultant cardiologist with a specialist interest in heart failure and cardiac imaging.

Tammy also works as the national clinical lead for advance care planning and clinical communication programme at the health and quality safety commission of New Zealand.  The commission are currently promoting shared goals of care in hospitals and Tammy is challenging notions around CPR. She lives in Nelson with 2 free range children, her husband and several chickens.

Tammy Pegg

Tan-Woan-shin profile

Tan Woan Shin​

Categories: Invited Speakers

Woan Shin works at the intersection of health economics and applied epidemiology. Her current research focuses on the application of mixed methods to the design and evaluation of health services innovation, and the translation of research findings into practice and policy. She has a special interest in advance care planning and co-led the evaluation of national ACP 1.0 programme in Singapore. Her current research includes the evaluation of a nursing home-based ACP training programme, and the development of prognostication models for non-cancer end-stage diseases to support referrals for ACP in acute care settings.  

Woan Shin received her Ph.D. in Health Services Research from the Nanyang Technological University as a NMRC Research Fellow and a recipient of the NHG Population Health Scholarship, and received her Masters and Bachelors in Economics from the National University of Singapore. 

Tan Woan Shin​

Jia-Zhimeng profile

Zhimeng Jia

Categories: Invited Speakers

Dr. Zhimeng Jia is a first-generation Chinese Canadian with a passion to build health equity for Asian immigrant patients and their families amidst serious illness. Before joining the Temmy Latner Centre for Palliative Care, he completed palliative care clinical training at the University of Alberta and research fellowship at the Dana-Farber Cancer Institute. In his current role, Dr. Jia splits his time caring for seriously ill Asian immigrant patients admitted to the Mount Sinai Hospital and leading several original investigations to improve palliative care communication and service delivery for Asian immigrant patients. His research is internationally recognized and has drawn funding support from Mount Sinai Hospital, Health Canada, Pan-Canadian Palliative Care Research Collaborative, Harvard Fairbanks Centre for Chinese Studies, and Harvard Medical School.

Zhimeng Jia