Lessons learned from a collaborative meeting to construct a palliative care protocol.

As the treatment of advanced illness necessitates a multidimensional and culturally sensitive approach, a conference of international leaders in affected disciplines (quality of life research, ethno-cultural variability, palliative medicine, surgical oncology, gastroenterology, major consortium research, medical ethics, and patient advocacy/cancer survivors) was organized to provide the necessary expertise and broad ethnic and racial perspectives. During the course of the two-day conference, participants first deliberated in small groups focused on specific areas of concern to palliative care research: outcome measures, ethical dilemmas, barriers, and solutions, cross-cultural issues, palliative care study implementation, and protocol development. Each group presented the results of their meetings, and the conference as a whole worked out the final details of a research protocol for malignant bowel obstruction. Lessons learned in the process of conceiving and organizing the meetings, implementing, and disseminating the results of the conference provide insight into the usefulness of this method for developing workable palliative care research methodologies.