2026 Retreat

PaRC held a research retreat on Thursday, May 28^th, which brought together palliative care and serious illness stakeholders from around the university and UPMC's Palliative and Supportive Institute. Attendees included faculty, clinicians, and educators from PaRC and the Section of Palliative Care, as well as invited representatives of schools and departments across campus including the Institute of Bioethics, the School of Medicine's Department of Critical Care, Department of Pediatrics, Division of Geriatrics, the School of Public Health, the School of Nursing, and more. 

Using a human-centered design process facilitated by Justin Yu, participants divided into groups to identify major unsolved problems in palliative care research. In the second phase of the event, participants divided into different groups, with assistance from the University of Pittsburgh AI tools, created a pitch slide proposing a study. In the third phase of the event, groups presented the prospective studies to a panel of judges who selected a winning team. The panel noted that each of the presented study summaries was a fundable research project.