Committee German-Speaking Countries

Sibylle Felber, Bern, Switzerland

Sibylle Jeanine Felber is a health communication scientist and scientific collaborator at the University Center for Palliative Care, University Hospital Bern and University of Bern. She is involved in research projects and educational interventions targeting talking about dying and death, advance care planning and compassionate care on an interpersonal (healthcare professionals, patients, relatives) and public health level. Communication is her passion - providing an essential basis for building bridges between people, topics, interests and even between the beginning and the end of life!

Monica Fliedner, Bern, Switzerland

Dr Monica Fliedner is an Advanced Practice Nurse and Co-Director of the University Center for Palliative Care, University Hospital Bern and University of Bern. She is working clinically (consultancy services within the hospital), and is engaged in education on graduate and postgraduate level as well as research projects aiming mainly at implementing advance care planning in patients with a life limiting disease. As president of the Bernese section of the Swiss Society for Palliative Care and board member of the European Society for Palliative Care she is involved in several community based projects and networks within Switzerland and Europe.

Elisabeth Medicus, Innsbruck, Austria

Dr Elisabeth Medicus, MD, general practitioner with a specialization in palliative medicine. For 21 years (until 2019) physician at the Tyrolean Hospice Community, 18 years in the management. From 1998 onwards, helped shape the development of palliative care in Tyrol. Currently teaching at the Medical University of Innsbruck and at the Tyrolean Hospice Association, among others. Consulting work for care institutions and in palliative care projects.

Raymond Voltz, Cologne, Germany

In 1991, after his medical studies, Raymond Voltz completed his doctoral thesis in tumor immunology in Munich. Clinically a neurologist by training, after a research scholarship in Martinsried and New York, he was appointed a C3 professor for oncological neuroimmunology in 2003. In 2004, Raymond Voltz took over the newly founded Chair for Palliative Medicine at the University Hospital at Cologne and currently is the chair of its research ethics committee.

He has been interested in the hospice idea since 1985 and was one of the founding members of the German Society of Palliative Medicine in 1994 and has been its vice president from 2006 to 2012, chairing the national palliative care congress in 2014. He is on the steering board of the National Palliative Care Guideline, chairs the Palliative and Hospice network Cologne and sits on the steering board of Caring Community Cologne.

Klaus Wegleitner, Graz, Austria

As an Associate Professor (Public Health & End-of-Life-Care) he is Vice Director of the Center for Interdisciplinary Research on Aging and Care (CIRAC), head of the working area “Public Care” at the Institute of Pastoral Theology at the University of Graz (Austria) and chairperson of “Careweb - Association for the promotion of societal care culture. Life, old age, dementia and dying” in Vienna. His research interests are addressing the need for developing and transforming health care systems and societal care networks in elderly and end-of-life care, interlinking palliative care and public health perspectives, care ethics, questions about social justice and the democratization of care. A major aspect of his research and consulting is to promote and develop Caring/Compassionate Communities.

Birgit Weihrauch, Cologne, Germany

Dr. Birgit Weihrauch, MD/Social Medicine with many years of experience in internal medicine and pediatrics, a.o. in a County Hospital in Phoenix/AZ, USA. For about 20 years she worked as a senior official in health policy in different ministries in Germany where she since the end oft the 1980‘s was also engaged in implementing health political structures for hospice and palliative care. From 2006-2012 she was chair of the DHPV (German Hospice and Palliative Care Association), and at that time one oft he initiators of he German Charter for the Care of the critically Ill and the Dying in Germany. As a board member she is presently active in the Palliative and Hospice Network Cologne and in promoting the Caring Community inititiative.