15th World Congress of the European Association for Palliative Care (EAPC) in Madrid 18-20 May 2017

Just to hold the program of this three days’ professional congress in your hands gives you a feeling of astonishment and fascination at a time. Tightly pressed into more than 160 pages you could find an extensive range of topics on the main theme “Progressing Palliative Care”. It took a thorough reading guided by one’s professional interests and obligations, to make a choice from this abundance of topics. There was the whole wealth of themes in an ambitious design marked by international influence and opening up many perspectives. The director of the Academy had the opportunity to talk to colleagues from Armenia and Iran. The presentation of two new atlases “Atlas of Palliative Care in Africa” and “Atlas of Palliative Care in the Eastern Mediterranean Region” was very impressive for him. It is a great encouragement to see, how even in countries torn by crises tender structures of palliative work come into being.

The next World Congress will be held in Berlin in 2019 (www.eapc-2019.org). The anticipation is already great today!