Who cares?

The role of communities at the end of life Tuesday 16 July 2013

With Professor Roderick Macleod, University of Sydney 

It is often suggested that a society can be judged by the way it cares for its most sick and vulnerable people. Professor Roderick Macleod will explore the theoretical and practical aspects of the nature of care, drawn from individual experience and illustrated with literature and visual arts. Extrapolating the individual experience to the community level, he will examine the nature and role of 'compassionate communities'.

Using national and international examples he will illustrate how Australia compares against other 'compassionate communities'. How might we be judged?

Rod MacLeod is Senior Staff Specialist in Palliative Care at HammondCare in Sydney and Conjoint Professor in Palliative Care at the University of Sydney. He was previously South Link Health Professor in Palliative Care at the Dunedin School of Medicine, University of Otago. He started his career in palliative care in England in 1988. He has a longstanding interest in education in palliative care completing his PhD work in 2002 with a submission entitled "Changing the way that doctors learn to care for people who are dying". He has published over 100 articles in the area of palliative care in national and international journals and has written over 20 book chapters for palliative care texts. His book Snapshots on the journey - an anthology of poems through death and remembrance was published by Steele Roberts, Wellington in 2002.

Co-presented by The Bob Hawke Prime Ministerial Centre and the Palliative Care Council of South Australia

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