Marie-Charlotte Bouësseau, director of the department of Integrated Health Services at the World Health Organization (WHO) headquarters, visited the ATLANTES Global Observatory of Palliative Care at the Institute for Culture and Society (ICS) of the University of Navarra. 

During her stay, Dr. Bouësseau met the Rector, Maria Iraburu. They were accompanied by Carlos Centeno, principal investigator of ATLANTES and director of Palliative Medicine at the Clínica Universidad de Navarra; and the researcher Vilma Tripodoro, recently distinguished by the Latin American Palliative Care Association with the Dr. Eduardo Bruera Award.

Dr. Bouësseau came to Pamplona to learn about the work of ATLANTES, designated in 2022 as a WHO collaborating center for the global monitoring of palliative care development . During a period of four years, the group will carry out programs of study and advise on the progress of palliative care at an international level. This is the only collaborating center in this subject in Spain and one of five in the world, located in the United Kingdom, India and South Korea. 

She has also worked together with the ATLANTES team on some of the assignments they are currently developing for the Organization: the monitoring of the development of palliative care in countries such as Morocco and Benin; future projects of regional assessment of this specialization program; and the collaboration with the other four collaborating centers. 

About Marie-Charlotte Buessëau

After obtaining her M.D. degree from the University of Paris, Marie-Charlotte Buessëau practiced cardiology in France and carried out postgraduate studies in Epidemiology, Social sciences and Philosophy in France and Chile. Since 1995, her activities have focused on global public health issues and bioethics. 

For 10 years she has participated in several cooperation projects and created a bioethics unit in the Chilean Ministry of Health. In November 2002, she joined WHO to coordinate numerous projects in the field of public health ethics and ethics at research, especially in middle and low income countries. Since May 2013, she has been working at WHO's department of Integrated Health Services on the fields of service delivery, quality of care and integrated people-centered services.

The line of research of Palliative Medicine of the University of Navarra is one of the main axes of its Strategy 2025. It promotes a social impact-oriented research and a scientific production focused, in this case, on the search for personalized solutions for the health care of patients with diseases that involve severe pain.