Position paper on undergraduate Palliative Medicine education for doctors in South Africa.

Background:  Basic palliative care teaching should be included in training curricula for health care providers (HCPs) at all levels of the health service to ensure that the goal set by the South African (SA) National Policy Framework and Strategy for Palliative Care, to have an adequate number of appropriately trained HCPs in South Africa, is achieved. Furthermore, palliative learning objectives for nurses and doctors should be standardised. Many SA medical schools have integrated elements of Palliative Medicine (PM) teaching into undergraduate medical training programmes for doctors; however, the degree of integration varies widely, and consensus and standardisation of the content, structure and delivery of such PM training programmes are not yet a reality.

Face and content validity, acceptability, feasibility, and implementability of a novel outcome measure for children with life-limiting or life-threatening illness in three sub-Saharan African countries.

Background: The Children's Palliative Care Outcome Scale (C-POS) is the first measure developed for children with life-limiting and -threatening illness. It is essential to determine whether the measure addresses what matters to children, and if they can comprehend and respond to its items.

Aim: To determine the face and content validity, comprehensiveness, comprehensibility, acceptability and feasibility, and implementability of the C-POS.

Family experiences of oncological palliative and supportive care in children: can we do better?

Aims: Families were interviewed as a quality improvement assessment for palliative and supportive care services for children.

Methods: This exploratory qualitative study of family members of children with cancer was conducted at an academic hospital in central South Africa and a grounded theory approach was used. Face-to-face interviews using a semi-structured interview guide were conducted with 16 family members of 16 children.

Inspiration, innovation and integration: highlights from the third ICPCN conference on children's palliative care, 30 May to 2 June 2018, Durban, South Africa.

The International Children's Palliative Care Network (ICPCN) held its third international conference on children's palliative care in Durban, South Africa, from May 30 2018 to 2 June 2018. The conference-inspiration, innovation and integration-brought together 250 participants from 41 countries and was held in conjunction with local partners-Umduduzi Hospice Care for Children, Palliative Treatment for Children South Africa (Patch SA) and the Hospice and Palliative Care Association of South Africa. It built on national and global developments in palliative care such as its inclusion in Universal health coverage (UHC), the Lancet Commission report on pain and palliative care and the sustainable development goals (SDGs), and aimed to raise the profile of children's palliative care in KwaZulu-Natal (KZN) and nationally.

Whole-Body MRI Virtual Autopsy Using Diffusion-weighted Imaging With Background Suppression (DWIBS) at 3 T in a Child Succumbing to Chordoma.

Background: We report the use of diffusion-weighted imaging with background suppression (DWIBS) in pediatric virtual magnetic resonance imaging (MRI) autopsy of a child who succumbed to chordoma.

Case Description: A 10-year-old girl who succumbed to relapse of a chordoma underwent whole-body virtual MRI autopsy 12 hours postmortem with short Tau inversion recovery (STIR) and DWIBS on 3 T, which demonstrated the primary mass, local and cardiac invasion, and metastatic disease to the thorax, abdomen, head/neck, and musculoskeletal system.

Conclusions: Postmortem virtual MRI autopsy including DWIBS successfully demonstrated the transthoracic spread of chordoma and invasion of the heart, resulting in blood-borne metastases.