GP Dinner & Seminar: Generalist Advanced Shared Palliative care (GASP) - Palliating refractory breathlessness; much more than opioids

Join our Banksia Palliative Care experts for the forth instalment into our new Generalist Advanced Shared Palliative care (GASP) program. Like many things in palliative care, it's hard to prove what overall helps in real life living and dying with breathlessness. Yet it is one of the most feared symptoms - not only is breathlessness strongly associated with distress and suffering in many cultures, there are physiological mechanisms to trigger anxiety and panic within the individual. Breathlessness is also frequently a symptom of non-respiratory diseases, and maybe present simply due to inevitable functional decline. For everyone living and dying at their place of residence in Victoria, General Practitioners are the main doctors overseeing the person's medical care with multi-professional support, often in collaboration with specialist community palliative care services such as Banksia. There are some complex scenarios where additional shared-care input from Palliative Medicine Specialists is likely going to be beneficial to enhance ongoing care by the GPs. In our new Generalist Advanced Shared Palliative care (GASP) program, we aim to consolidate on the bi-directional learnings to enhance care in these complex palliative care scenarios. Refractory breathlessness is one of them. Learning Outcomes: • Increase confidence in supporting non-pharmacological management of refractory breathlessness. • Increase confidence in appropriate pharmacological management of refractory breathlessness. • Increase confidence in managing refractory breathlessness at end of life. • Improve professional connection with local Community Palliative Care service. This event is for health care professionals and is CPD accredited. A sushi dinner is included in the program, so please specify dietary requirements within booking. Please contact the Learning Centre Team on [email protected] or 9455 0822 for more information.