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Speaker’s Biographies
monitoring side effects of cancer therapies are special interests; Annie is a member of the NCRI Supportive and Palliative
Care Clinical Studies Group. She also teaches oncology nursing in sub-Saharan Africa, alongside local nurses.
Speaker Abstract(s): S75
Gilbert Zulian
Geneva University Hospitals, Readaptation and Palliative Medicine, Geneva, Switzerland
Gilbert Zulian received his medical degree from the Faculty of Medicine of the University of Geneva in Switzerland
in 1981. He achieved his medical doctorate in 1985 with a thesis on Hodgkin’s disease. He fulfilled his post-graduate
training to obtain the FMH (Foederatio Medicorum Helveticorum) specialty in internal medicine at Geneva University
Hospitals (HUG). After a clinical fellowship in cancer medicine at the Royal Marsden Hospital, he completed the FMH
specialty in medical oncology and the ESMO board certification in 1994 to then confront cancer medicine with the reality
of the aging of the cancer population and obtain the FMH specialty in geriatric medicine in 2002.
He thus developed a local program of geriatric oncology at HUG, perhaps best called onco-geriatrics, being involved as
an external expert in the setting of the geriatric oncology program lead by the Institut National du Cancer (INCA) in
France which resulted in the mapping of France with joint units of geriatric medicine and cancer medicine. But with a
significant part of the cancer patient population unfortunately dying too early, despite the many treatments and the best
of care they received, he turned his interests towards the development of palliative medicine. He is at present head of
the division of palliative medicine and chief of the department of readaptation and palliative medicine at HUG and is a
senior lecturer at the Faculty of Medicine of Geneva University in charge of palliative medicine.
He is editor-in-chief of the Revue Internationale de Soins Palliatifs and member of the editorial board of the Revue
Suisse de Médecine, of the Journal of Geriatric Oncology and of the Journal d’Onco-Gériatrie. He is member of several
professional societies, a founding member SIOG and of the Fédération Internationale de Soins Palliatifs, the current
chairman of the ESMO Faculty group Elderly and the vice-president of the Swiss Cancer League.
His current professional interests focus on subjects related to aging, cancer, ethics and end-of-life of the human beings.