PCARN co-chair update: My journey into palliative care research

Welcome back to the PCARN e-bulletin for 2025! We have an exciting year ahead as our research network continues to grow and our kaupapa becomes established.

Last year, the major focus for PCARN was our research hui, held in Te Whanganui-a-Tara Wellington in November. It was such a successful day with fabulous speakers and great opportunities for networking. In the session on what direction PCARN could take in 2025 and beyond, it was clear that ethics committees and the ethics approvals process continue to be an area that palliative care researchers find most challenging. Considering this, we are planning to focus on this topic for our first webinar of 2025 – we will communicate dates and details via our social media channels and website in due course.

As well as webinars, PCARN’s other plans for 2025 include working on our strategy document, building our membership and increasing our profile. As ever, if you have a research project you would like featured on our website or a recent publication we can add to our library, please get in touch.

This year, we are also keen to get to know you – our members – better and hear your stories about why and how you got into palliative care research. We’re looking to share these stories on our social media channels as a way of profiling the wonderful people working hard in our sector. If you would like to be featured, or you work with someone who has an inspirational story to share, please let us know!

To start us off, here is my journey into palliative care research. As a medical student my focus was getting through the course and graduating. I never really thought about research or academia as a career. As the years rolled on, I faced more exams, busy hospital rotations and family life. It was not until I finished my training in palliative medicine and started in my community job at Nurse Maude that I realised I had questions about the care we deliver and the evidence behind it.

I started wondering why we do certain things or why people with palliative care needs miss out on various treatments. When you ask why, the next step is to investigate! This led to my research career which, so far, has focused on lymphoedema, COPD, medical education, the use of ultrasound in the community, rural models of care, and pancreatic cancer.

Due to a bit of serendipity, I snagged a small role at the University of Otago in 2014, which grew into a PhD and now a rather large job at the Department of Medicine, Christchurch. I now have the privilege of being ‘paid’ to conduct research as part of my role.

Being co-chair of PCARN with the amazing Cheryl Davies is one way I can help palliative care research in Aotearoa New Zealand grow and flourish. Palliative care clinical research infrastructure in Aotearoa is still in its infancy, but you have to start somewhere! PCARN has a website, more than 120 members, has run a successful research hui, produces regular newsletters and has run a webinar on qualitative research. We have further plans in 2025 and we want to help support you!

Ngā mihi nui,

Amanda