Committee Swiss Programme

Marc Antoine Berthod

Marc-Antoine Berthod is professor at the University of Applied Sciences and Arts Western Switzerland (HES-SO), and co-dean of the Health and Social Work Research Laboratory of the School of Social Work and Health Lausanne. With a doctorate in anthropology, he has been teaching and researching end-of-life issues, death and bereavement since the mid-1990s, and has published several books and articles with various colleagues, notably on bereavement at work and assisted suicide in Switzerland. He is also president of the Société d'études thanatologiques de Suisse romande.

Renate Gurtner

Renate Gurtner Vontobel is a health scientist with a master’s degree in Public Health (MPH) and Managing Director of palliative.ch - the Swiss Association for Palliative Medicine, Care and Support. Thanks to her professional experience as a manager and project leader at the Swiss federal government (Swiss Federal Office of Public Health), in the private sector (including as the manager of a nursing home) and in educational institutions, she has a good knowledge of the Swiss healthcare system, healthcare policy and public health. As CEO of palliative.ch, she is involved in numerous national committees for the further development of palliative care, national palliative care and, last but not least, appropriate, sustainable funding for palliative care.

Monika Hagemann

Dr Monika Hagemann is a health scientist at the University Center for Palliative Care in Bern, Switzerland. She holds a Master's degree in economics with a specialization in health science and has earned her doctoral degree in medical science. With extensive experience in hospital and project management gained from diverse international settings, Monika brings a wealth of practical knowledge to her research endeavors. Her research is focused on the comprehensive analysis of costs within palliative care settings. She is dedicated to bridging the gap between research insights and real-world applications which underscores her passion for advancing palliative care practices.

Claudia Michel

Claudia Michel, born in 1971, holds a doctorate in social geography. She taught and researched in the field of sustainable development at the University of Bern and has been a lecturer at the Institute of Ageing at the Bern University of Applied Sciences since 2014. She teaches interprofessional project work, researchers social support in the last phase of life and develops tools for working with the elderly in communal social spaces together with practice partners. She enjoys experimenting with forms of knowledge transfer between research and practice. In the past, she has written policy briefs, produced an exhibition and a film.

Phil Larkin

Philip Larkin is Kristian Gerhard Jebsen Chair of Palliative Care Nursing within the Palliative and Supportive Care Service of the University Hospital Centre (CHUV) affiliated to the Institute for Higher Education and Research in Healthcare (IUFRS), University of Lausanne.

He leads a palliative care nursing research team at the CHUV and continues to lecture nationally and internationally on palliative care, nursing practice and compassion in care. His current work, funded by the Stiftungpflegewissenschaft Schweiz is exploring interventions to support informal caregivers caring for people in the home at end-of-life.

Julia Rehsmann

Julia Rehsmann is a social anthropologist and works as a research fellow at the Bern University of Applied Science and the University of Bern. She conducted her Postdoc research as part of the interdisciplinary research project "Settings of Dying" on palliative care in Switzerland by applying ethnographic methods. She explored how nursing practice shapes dying today, focusing on the role of expertise, gender, narratives and materialities in end-of-life care. She is interested in interdisciplinary approaches to shed light on current complexities in healthcare contexts and communicate research findings to a wider public.

Robert Sempach

Robert Sempach, Dr. phil. I, studied education and psychology at the University of Zurich and earned his doctorate as a research assistant at the Institute for Social and Preventive Medicine on everyday theories of dieting behavior. He then moved into addiction research, first to the Social Department of the City of Zurich, and then to the Institute for Addiction and Health Research as a division head and co-initiator. He then worked in his own practice as a nutrition psychologist. From 2003 to 2021, he worked for the Migros-Genossenschafts-Bund in the Directorate of Culture and Social Affairs as a project manager, where he initiated, among other things, the Swiss Caring Communities Network. Since 2021 he has been working on a voluntary and freelance basis in the field of Caring Communities.

Corina Wirth

Corina Wirth, Dr.phil. nat et sci. med., has a doctorate in neurophysiology. After holding positions at universities, in the private sector and at the federal government, she has headed the office of the Swiss Society for Public Health for several years. There she is involved in a large number of projects and programmes to promote public health at the scientific and political level and regularly organises conferences and meetings on public health topics. For example, together with Alzheimer Switzerland, she has launched the annual national dementia conference. Ageing and related issues such as long-term care, family care and dementia are important topics for the Swiss Society for Public Health.