The thirteenth edition of the 2025 Academic Seminar on Palliative Care brought together professionals from across the entire care network, confirming how this event has become a stable point of reference for those working alongside patients with advanced chronic illnesses or at the end of life. The day was promoted by SUPSI’s Department of Business Economics, Health and Social Care, in collaboration with the EOC Clinic of Palliative and Supportive Care and the Ticino Medical Association (OMCT). A shared direction that was most evident in the quality of the discussion—because this was not about placing logos on a programme, but about holding together different areas of expertise when reality offers no shortcuts.
This year’s title, “Palliative care today: between good practices, ethical choices, innovation and humanity,” became the common thread running through contributions that addressed clinical, ethical, organisational and technological issues. The morning focused on general palliative care, with sessions dedicated to fundamental human needs, the debate on sedation in nursing homes for terminal patients, and the issue of deprescribing in the elderly population. In the afternoon, the focus shifted to specialist palliative care, spanning neurology, complex end-of-life decision-making, the hypothesis of psychedelics as therapeutic support, and the arrival of tools knocking at the door of clinical practice: virtual reality, extended reality and artificial intelligence.
Yet more than the list of topics, what gave real substance to the day was its format: interdisciplinary, and therefore inevitably alive. Exchanges, questions and perspectives intersected throughout the entire seminar.
Within this measurable success, a new and concrete signal also emerged: the first release of digital badges as part of the SUPSI Continuing Education pilot project linked to the seminar. Alongside the event, participants were able to obtain an “Advanced Training+” Digital Badge by registering and completing a short online quiz. A concise, traceable and immediately usable form of recognition that does not replace the core of the seminar, but completes it—turning the learning experience into something that can be formally recognised and valued. The feedback confirms it: there is interest in agile tools, yes, but with clear standards.
The organisation of the seminar is the result of joint work between SUPSI, the EOC Clinic of Palliative and Supportive Care, OMCT and a Scientific Committee. The outcome, however, can be summed up without emphasis: a large, engaged and well-prepared professional community, and a first step—the digital badges—that is a pilot today and could become a method tomorrow.