Vilma Irazola is a cardiologist and epidemiologist. She is the Director of the Department of Chronic Diseases at IECS and Director and PI of the South American Center of Excellence for Cardiovascular Health (CESCAS/SACECH). She is also an independent investigator of the National Council of Scientific Research of Argentina (CONICET). Her research is focused on health promotion, cardiovascular and cardiometabolic diseases, and cancer. She has extensive experience and leadership in scaling-up and implementation research in the area of chronic diseases and food systems. She is also an expert in the field of outcome measurements and questionnaire development and validation.

Vilma Irazola’s publications

Dr. Dussel graduated from Universidad de Buenos Aires (UBA) and did her MPH at the Harvard School of Public Health, Boston US. She is a pediatrician and pediatric palliative care specialist (Argentine Society of Pediatrics). She worked as staff physician at the Palliative care team at the pediatric Hospital Juan Garrahan, in Buenos Aires, Argentina.

Currently, she is the Director of the Center for Research and Implementation in Palliative Care (CII-CP) at IECS and works as an Associate Research Scientist for the Pediatric Palliative Care Service at the Dana-Farber Boston Children’s Cancer and Blood Disorders Center, Boston, US.

She coordinates several academic and research projects with the common goal of increasing access to palliative care and improving quality of life for children with life-threatening illnesses. Current projects include a multisite clinical trial that combines the use of technology to collect and report patient reported outcomes with early palliative care intervention in children with cancer, the development of a patient registry for palliative care teams, cross-cultural validation of patient-reported outcomes tools that measure symptoms and quality of life, monitoring of existing human resources dedicated to palliative care at a national level, as well as educational initiatives. Dr. Dussel coordinates EPEC-Pediatrico-LatinoAmerica, the Latin American branch of the EPEC-pediatrics course, a train the trainers curriculum. Faculty includes renowned teachers from the region. She has authored publications that have significantly influenced the field including the first randomized controlled trial to evaluate a palliative care intervention in children with advanced cancer, as well as studies that have evaluated the parents on preferred location of death, hastened death, and economic impact of pediatric cancer on families. She also has contributed with book chapters and as a co-investigator of epidemiologic studies with the Registry of Pediatric Cancer in Argentina (ROHA).

Verónica Dussel’s publications