Dr Stephanie Best to drive transformational change programs

Peter Mac and the VCCC Alliance are delighted to announce the appointment of Dr Stephanie Best - Senior Research Lead: Implementation Science, to a leadership position spanning the two organisations. Dr Best will be based in Peter Mac’s Department of Health Services Research from 28 March.

Through the dual appointment, Dr Best’s primary focus will be on facilitating a learning health systems approach in cancer treatment and care at an exciting time for both organisations and the cancer sector more broadly.

All things oral

With World Oral Health Day coming up on 20 March, Professor David Wiesenfeld, VCCC Alliance Research and Education Lead for Head and Neck Cancer recently joined 3RRR’s Sunday morning Radiotherapy program to raise awareness of head and neck cancers.

He said that there is a growing incidence of young women who haven’t smoked and don’t consume a lot of alcohol presenting to clinics with tongue cancer. “We have an expectation that the generation that has smoked – and perhaps more males, may develop tongue cancer but this increased incidence in young women is, as yet, unexplained.”

Cancer health services research leader to return to Europe 

Professor Maarten IJzerman, Chair of the VCCC Alliance Cancer Research Advisory Committee and Chair of Cancer Health Services Research at the University of Melbourne, will be returning to the Netherlands in May 2022 to take up an important new role as Dean of the Erasmus School of Health Policy and Management (ESHPM) in Rotterdam. 

Maarten will continue some of his activities with the alliance, including as a member of our Value-based Health Care program steering group and to continue to build the collaboration with the Centre for Victorian Data Linkage. 

Optimising the quality of multidisciplinary team meetings: A narrative review

Multidisciplinary oncology team meetings are crucial hubs for integrated, patient-centred diagnosis and treatment planning. Teams offer the potential to achieve more than any person could achieve working alone; yet, particularly in teams that are cross-disciplinary, it is critical to capitalise on the variety of knowledge, skills, and abilities available. Members of multidisciplinary teams (MDT), which include doctors, nurses and allied health clinicians, are well aware of the real-world constraints of putting principles into practice.  

VCCC Alliance Research and Education Leads for Cancer Nursing, Professor Mei Krishnasamy and Melanoma and Skin Cancer, Associate Professor David Gyorki recently led a review of the current state of play. 

Melbourne Business School leadership scholarship awarded

Congratulations to Professor Linda Mileshkin, interim Director of Medical Oncology at Peter MacCallum Cancer Centre, who has been named the recipient of the 2021 Melbourne Business School (MBS), Jo Leonard Memorial Scholarship.

The $8,500 residential scholarship, offered to senior female leaders from the VCCC Alliance working in cancer research, is inspired by Jo Leonard, a long-standing and valued member of the MBS who died from ovarian cancer in August 2016.

Clinical trials and drug development scholarships awarded

Melbourne MicroCert scholarships have been awarded to an impressive cohort of cancer clinicians, researchers, clinical trial study coordinators, postdoctoral scientists and PhD students from VCCC Alliance member organisations. The successful candidates represent many disciplines and research specialties from gynaecology and haematology to genomics, childhood and rare cancers.

The scholarships are awarded in a move to rapidly grow real-world skills and know-how in clinical trial protocol design and the fundamentals of drug commercialisation and attracted an accomplished, multidisciplinary group from across our research and clinical institutes and regional Victoria.  

4th Victorian Cancer Survivorship Conference March 24-25, 2022

There is still time to register for the fully virtual 4^th Victorian Cancer Survivorship Conference, hosted by the VCCC Alliance and the Australian Cancer Survivorship Centre (ACSC) at Peter Mac. 

The conference theme Shifting Gears: Rethinking Survivorship will consider how recent advances in cancer survivorship research and care can be adopted to better meet the needs of the growing survivorship population.