Hal Siden

MD, MHSc

Investigator, BC Children's Hospital
Medical Director, Canuck Place Children's Hospice
Division Lead, Palliative Medicine, BC Children's Hospital, UBC Pediatrics

Pediatric palliative care and palliative medicine are my main areas of interest. Children and families living with life-threatening disease face a number of challenges. Pediatric palliative care is quite different than adult palliative care – there are different diseases, the trajectories are different, and the needs of children and families are different.

Longitudinal studies of children with life-threatening conditions, epidemiology of children with these condition, and outcomes of palliative care are areas of active inquiry.

I am also interested in pain assessment and pain management. Pain is not well understood in children who are cognitively normal, and is very poorly understood in children with neurological impairment. Finding new treatments and tools for assessing pain is important. I am specifically interested in some new and emerging areas in biological markers of pain in children. We are launching a new study of pathways to assess and treat pain/irritability in non-verbal children.