Innovations in End-of-Life Care
an international journal of leaders in end-of-life care

Dr. Franco Toscani is a palliative medicine expert in Cremona, Italy. Trained originally in Anesthesiology and Intensive Care, Dr. Toscani has been a leader in the Italian palliative care movement for the last 18 years. In 1982 he founded the second palliative care unit in Italy (Sezione di Terapia del Dolore e Cure Palliative, Azienda Ospedaliera Cremonese) at the General Hospital of Cremona, where he still serves as director. Dr. Toscani is also one of the founders of the Italian Society for Palliative Care (SICP, 1986) and the European Association for Palliative Care (EAPC, 1988).

As part of the process of developing palliative care in Italy, Dr. Toscani collaborated with V. Ventafridda, the scientific director of the Floriani Foundation in Milan. The charity-funded Floriani Foundation initiated the first "experiment" of palliative home care in Italy in early 1980s, with an organizational model known as the "Floriani model", which represents a collaboration of governmental and private funding. The Floriani model consists of hospital-based units funded by the national health system, working with a charity-funded home care team working with an association of volunteers (Lega Tumori di Milano). In 1989, Dr. Toscani worked with his colleagues to found SIMPA, the Italian School of Palliative Medicine, and in 1993 was instrumental in founding the Italian journal of palliative care, Rivista Italiana di Cure Palliative. Dr. Toscani was the research director of the Italian Co-operative Research Group on Palliative Medicine, which conducted a nationwide prospective classification and staging study of terminal and cancer patients in Italy, published in 1996.¹ Dr. Toscani serves as the scientific director of the Palliative Care Research Institute, "Lino Maestroni". Recently, the Italian Minister of Health appointed Dr. Toscani to the National Committee for Palliative Care.

Dr. Toscani attributes the success of palliative care in Italy to the labor intensive and often disregarded work of an army of doctors, nurses, social workers, psychologists and volunteers, of which he is a proud member. In addition to his many professional responsibilities, he is a painter and a scholar of kendo and traditional Japanese metalwork.

1. Toscani F. On Behalf of Italian Co-operative Research Group on Palliative Medicine. Classification and staging of terminal cancer patients: rationale and objectives of a multicentre cohort prospective study and methods used. [Return to Bio]

[Return to International Perspectives]