Neurology and palliative care - areas of difficulty

Dr Eileen Cowey is a senior lecturer in the Nursing and Health Care School at the University of Glasgow, and has a background in clinical stroke research. Her work has examined acute stroke care, including end-of-life care, catheterisation practices, pain management, decision-making and communication.

Most recently Dr Cowey has been involved in exploring palliative care needs following major stroke. She has also worked with Scottish clinical and academic colleagues to develop an online educational resource that supports acute stroke unit staff in holding difficult conversations with patients and families at the end of life.

Dr Cowey is Programme Director of the MSc (Med Sci) Advanced Practice in Health Care/MSc Advanced Nursing Science and teaches on the BSc (Hons) Nursing joint degree partnership between the University of Glasgow and Singapore Institute of Technology. She serves on the committee of the Scottish Stroke Nurses Forum.

Dr Amy Kingston attended university at UCL being awarded her medical degree and an intercalated BSc in Psychology. She has been a palliative medicine consultant since 2010 and was until recently, having decided to work 4 days a week, also a consultant at St Georges NHS Foundation Trust. She was awarded her FRCP in 2015.

Outside of medicine, she has interests in hockey, skiing and volunteers for Lowland Search and Rescue.

Dr Lina Nashef is a Consultant Neurologist with an interest in epilepsy and Reader in Neurology at King’s College Hospital. She qualified in medicine at Bristol University in 1980 and trained in Bristol, Charing Cross, King’s College and the National Hospitals. She carried out research into Sudden Death in Epilepsy, the subject of her MD dissertation awarded in 1996. She became a fellow of the Royal College of Physicians in 2000 and previously served for 10 years on the DVLA neurology panel. She has co-edited a textbook on Neurology and Pregnancy and has many publications in the epilepsy field, including co-authoring the Oxford University Press Handbook on epilepsy. She serves on the council of the Association of British Neurologists. She has been a trustee within the charitable sector.

Dr Foley is a Consultant neurologist with a particular interest in the application of the principles of palliative care to people living with progressive neurological disease. 

His PhD focused on the epidemiology and mechanisms of neuropathic pain in multiple sclerosis (MS). He led a clinical and neuroimaging study of patients with relapsing-remitting MS, who were affected by neuropathic limb pain. The study used a variety of novel methodologies including detailed neuropsychological assessment, and both structural and functional imaging of the brain, to assess whether patients' innate ability to modulate pain and its severity is damaged by multiple sclerosis. 

Peter now works within the NHS Lothian MS service, as well as contribute to general and acute neurology services and the Huntington's disease service.