In 1976, hosted the First International Congress on the Care of the Terminally Ill, in Montreal, Quebec. Since then, and through multiple names, the Congress has grown in both scale and influence, building its reputation as a meeting in which delegates experience a unique blend of deep humanism and rigorous science. As we embark on the next 50 years of palliative care, , Kappy and Eric M. Flanders Chair of Palliative Care at 91丝瓜视频, reflects on the importance of this meeting.
Lexa Frail (LF): The Montreal International Palliative Care Congress is about to have its 50th anniversary. What does this mean for palliative care as a field?
Justin Sanders (JS): The 50th anniversary provides an important opportunity to celebrate all that we've accomplished in the last half decade. Balfour Mount gave palliative care its name while looking for a more acceptable term than 鈥渉ospice鈥� to the Francophone population of Quebec. He wanted to introduce the principles and practices of hospice into the acute care hospital, with the goal of improving care for patients with cancer at the end of life. Fifty years later, palliative care can be understood as a quadruple-aim health system innovation that improves patient outcomes, patient experience, and value within the system, while also generating a set of skills that have been disseminated throughout medical education and practice in ways that improve clinicians' experience. In the wake of Dr. Mount鈥檚 death late last year, I think this is an important opportunity to celebrate his legacy and all the ways that we've improved healthcare in the last 50 years.
LF: In broad strokes, why is this Congress going to be exciting?
JS: I anticipate that this is the biggest Congress to date. The Congress has always been a unique and celebrated mix of the humanities and the most rigorous science in our field, and I think that this edition has the opportunity to be a real homecoming for those who have attended the Congress before, but have, for whatever reasons, not been able to attend in recent years. We hear over and over again that this is the best meeting in palliative care internationally. So, I hope that amidst all the geopolitical instability globally, people see this as an opportunity to collect themselves, to network, and to build and celebrate our community. I think it's really important that we take opportunities and milestones like this to be together. My hope is that people feel the power of gathering to celebrate our work and each other.
LF: Can you tell us about the theme of this year's Congress and how it relates to palliative care practitioners?
JS: The overall theme of this Congress is the idea of 鈥渂ack to the future,鈥� in thinking about and celebrating the ideas that are at the core of our practice while also investigating those ideas and thinking about their implications for the future. The world looks very different than it did 50 years ago. Now, the questions I have are about how we take these important ideas that have informed our work, ideas and practices, philosophies, and really understand them in this current context for the next 50 years of palliative care.
This is an important inflection point for us, in the sense that we've been here for half a century. This meeting has been here for half a century, and the field itself is essentially half a century old. What do we want the next 50 years to look like? That is what our plenaries and many of the sessions of the Congress will be thinking about. We look at the past, but project towards the future.
I can give a concrete example of that: one of our plenary speakers is , who has written an essential text for our field in his doctoral work of excavating the archives of His purpose was to try to understand where the idea of total pain came from, but also how Dame Saunders discussed it in certain ways and how others have been critical of this construct. I think that hearing from someone like that on this topic is really important for us. If total pain conceptualizes the interaction of multiple dimensions of suffering, I think we've discovered that there are even more dimensions of suffering now, and we have to think about how to address them.
Another example is plenary speaker , who gave a plenary at the Congress 20 years ago. He has done a lot of thinking as a senior European leader in palliative care around the questions of 鈥渨here do we come from, and where do we need to go now?鈥� and 鈥渨hat are the political dimensions of palliative care that we must consider and nurture, as we move into a future where our work is going to become even more essential than it is now?鈥�
LF: What should participants look forward to?
JS: Well, participants should look forward to the typical blend of humanism, arts, and rigorous science for which the meeting is highly regarded. In addition to world class sessions, we鈥檙e planning two extraordinary pre-conference workshops. The first will build upon the PalliPsych session led by Drs and in 2024. The second will be a museum education day, which will provide an essential introduction to educators looking to incorporate more humanities in undergraduate and graduate education. Also, I think for those who have not been to Montreal, people always look forward to coming here because of its cultural richness, food, and it's just a wonderful and manageable city to congregate in. I'm always excited to share that with people because I love this city so much. Again, this is going to be a big year. My hope is that people have an opportunity to see friends and colleagues that they haven't seen for a long time from places around the world.
LF: Is there anything else you'd like to add?
JS: For those who have been to the Congress before, I encourage you to come back this year. I think it's a really important year to come and be a part of the Congress, and I'm really excited about the plenaries and the talks that are coming together. For those who haven't been, I encourage you to come. It's a great time of year and a great city, and I think that you'll see the reason why people think this is such a wonderful meeting in our field.
The 2026 MIPCC will take place from October 6-9 at the Palais de Congr猫s. For more information, please visit the