Peter Lawlor

DMed, FRCPI, CCFP(C), MMedSc

Senior Investigator

Investigator

Ottawa Hospital Research Institute
Professor

Division of Palliative Care, Department of Medicine, University of Ottawa

About:

Dr. Peter Lawlor is a Professor in the Division of Palliative Care, University of Ottawa. He is a practicing physician at Canada's largest academic Palliative Care Unit, at Saint-Vincent Hospital in Ottawa. Since completing a Clinical Fellowship with the Edmonton Palliative Care Program he has worked for over 20 years in palliative care. He has experience of practicing in a range of healthcare settings and systems in Canada, UK, Portugal and Ireland. His contributions to the organization and practice of palliative care were recognized through a Physician Excellence Award at Bruyère Continuing Care in 2015. He has 50% protected academic time and is the Research Lead for the local academic division.

He is national co-Lead in Clinical Research for the Pan-Canadian Palliative Care Research Collaborative, a team of researchers, patient representatives, and knowledge users, who are focused on improving the quality and increasing the capacity of palliative care research in Canada through clinical trials and other rigorously designed studies. He was appointed inaugural Gulbenkian Visiting Chair/Professor, University of Lisbon, 2012-2015. He was conferred with a DMed degree from the National University of Ireland in 2022, on the basis of published work. He has published over 100 peer-reviewed publications with a total of over 6000 citations. He has received over $17 million in collaborative research funding.

Along with his colleague, Dr. Shirley Bush, Dr. Lawlor has a long history of international collaboration with Australian and UK researchers in delirium. He has experience in conducting trials of pharmacological and nonpharmacological interventions to manage and prevent delirium in palliative care settings. He is a co-author of the 2018 European Society of Medical Oncology guidelines on delirium management.

Research Interests:

Cognitive dysfunction (particularly delirium in palliative care), cancer pain assessment and management, psychosocial distress in palliative care.

Select Publications:

Reis-Pina P, Sabri E, Birkett NJ, Barbosa A, Lawlor PG. (2019). Cancer related pain: a longitudinal study of time to stable pain control and its clinic-demographic predictors. Journal of Pain and Symptom Management.

Lawlor PG, McNamara-Kilian M, MacDonald AR, Momoli F, Tierney S, Lacaze-Masmonteil N, Dasgupta M, Agar M, Pereira J, Currow D, Bush SH. (2020). Melatonin to prevent delirium in patients with advanced cancer: a double blind, parallel, randomized, controlled, feasibility trial. BMC Palliative Care.

Lawlor PG, Rutkowski NA, MacDonald AR, Ansari MT, Sikora L, Momoli F, Kanji S, Wright D, Rosenberg E, Hosie A, Pereira JL, Meagher D, Rice J, Scott J, Bush SH. (2019). A scoping review to map empirical evidence regarding key domains and questions in the clinical pathway of delirium in palliative care. Journal of Pain and Symptom Management.

Agar MR, Lawlor PG, Quinn S, Draper B, Caplan GA, Rowett D, Sanderson C, Hardy J, Le B, Eckermann S, McCaffrey N, Devilee L, Fazekas B, Hill M, Currow DC. (2017). Efficacy of oral risperidone, haloperidol, or placebo for delirium symptoms in palliative care: a randomized clinical trial. JAMA Internal Medicine.

Lawlor P, Gagnon B, Mancini I, Pereira J, Hanson J, Suarez-Almazor M, Bruera E. (2000). Occurrence, causes, and outcomes of delirium in patients with advanced cancer: a prospective study. Archives of Internal Medicine.

Contact:

plawlor@bruyere.org