“Scientists in the Clinic” has returned at Peter Mac after a COVID hiatus. For the remainder of the month, ten scientists will be embedded in clinical and other front-line hospital roles.
They are shadowing clinicians in outpatient clinics and on ward rounds, and attending multi-disciplinary meetings, to gain insights into the patient experience and inspire new avenues for research.
Research Education Program Manager Claudie Thia said it was about building a culture of collaboration and stronger ties between scientists and clinicians at Peter Mac.
“When we first ran this in 2019 as a pilot, the feedback was that it really expanded the scientists’ understanding of the hospital and how patients and clinicians interact,” Ms Thia says.
‘Peter Mac is in a unique position with a research institute and cancer hospital in one site, and this program exemplifies our ‘bench to bedside” model of advancing the treatment of cancer.”
At the start of the program, the scientists go on a familiarisation tour taking in parts of Peter Mac they have typically never been to before.
Ultimately, the goal is to foster more cross-discipline communication that can help identify potential areas for translational and other research collaborations.
Contacts:
For more information contact the Peter Mac Communications team on 0417 123 048.
About Peter Mac:
Peter MacCallum Cancer Centre is a world-leading cancer research, education and treatment centre and Australia’s only public health service solely dedicated to caring for people affected by cancer.
Peter Mac Clinical Nurse Educator Trevor Saunders shares his nursing story and explains the new Nursing Professional Practice Model he was instrumental in developing.
Peter Mac Clinical Nurse Educator Trevor Saunders shares his nursing story and explains the new Nursing Professional Practice Model he was instrumental in developing.
Trevor is a long-time cancer nurse who has worked at Peter Mac for many years, but has extensive experience across other hospital settings.
Initially working mainly with patients receiving radiotherapy before working in our Lung, Urology, and Head and Neck units, Trevor was seven years into his career when he decided that cancer nursing was his passion.
Although he wasn’t initially sure what cancer nursing was until he was doing it, Trevor explains, “There was something about the complexity of the disease and the complexity of the interventions. Although I think I fell into it, I stayed.”
Trevor now works in Peter Mac’s Academic Nursing Unit, which offers many education options - from undergraduate to postgraduate - to guide nurses in developing their cancer nursing knowledge and practical skills.
As lead of the Advancing Nurse Practise Committee, Trevor was instrumental in developing Peter Mac’s new Nursing Professional Practice Model.
The model has been designed to help nurses like Trevor plan a career path and advance their knowledge, skills, and attributes – it is an approachable tool that nurses can use to look ahead, no matter where they are in their career.
“We wanted to provide nurses with a road map to help them understand where they are, where they could be and how to get there.” Trevor explains, “And build the cancer nursing workforce to meet the demands of the patients and carers that we see every day.”
“The aim was to revise the previous model to make it more flexible,” says Trevor, emphasising that it can be useful for nurses both at and outside of Peter Mac.
The model sets out the values that underpin nursing care at Peter Mac and the four fields of patient care, leadership, education, and research. Alongside these are the levels of performance that nurses can move through in each field, from novice to expert.
The model was presented at the Cancer Nurses Society of Australia’s 24th Annual Congress in Brisbane in June, where it was met with great interest by the Australian cancer nursing community.
Reflecting on his career so far, Trevor says that his commitment and enthusiasm for cancer nursing springs from his belief, “that it’s about bringing everything together and being true to the aim of being holistic. It’s not just about the technical aspects - it’s learning how to work with people who are facing a really terrible time.”
Asked what has kept him inspired, he explains, “Cancer care and cancer nursing hasn’t stood still, I like that. That and the reality of what you’re doing; looking after patients and carers who are at a really important time in their lives.”
Australia’s lung cancer statistics read like bad news but, thankfully, they are only half of the story.
Despite being the fifth most common cancer (behind prostate, breast, melanoma and bowel cancer in that order), lung cancer remains Australia’s No.1 cause of cancer deaths.
Another 8,664 Australians lives will be lost to lung cancer this year, well above the next placed bowel cancer (5,326 deaths) and pancreatic cancer (3,531 deaths).
The other, more positive half of the story is that after decades in which lung cancer’s long-term survival rate seemed stuck around 10% finally there are signs of progress.
While still at the back of the pack (e.g. prostate cancer’s five-year relative survival rate is 96%), five-year survival for lung cancer improved to 22% over the past decade and further gains are expected.
Peter Mac’s Professor Ben Solomon - who treats lung cancer patients and heads a lab advancing novel therapies - points to an expanding array of new, targeted drugs that are coming online.
“These targeted drugs, which have become standard-of-care relatively recently or are advancing through clinical trials, work in patients with specific molecular subsets of lung cancer,” says Prof Solomon.
“There are still many questions as to how these drugs together with new immunotherapy treatments can best be used alongside or replace our conventional chemotherapy, radiotherapy and surgery.
“But the next generation of lung cancer treatment is here now and giving us hope of better outcomes for these patients, and further gains in long-term survival, into the future.”
View a list of some of these new drugs, and their targets.
In late October this year, Prof Solomon discussed results of a clinical trial of the targeted drug repotrectinib at a major Molecular Targets and Cancer Therapeutics conference in Barcelona.
The trial involved patients with non-small cell lung cancer and who were ROS1-positive, indicating they carried a gene fault that promotes uncontrolled cell growth.
Among patients not previously been treated with a similar drug (and so may be resistant), 79% showed a positive response to repotrectinib.
Importantly, there were also signs the drug was active in lung cancers that had spread to the brain - a group for whom there are few effective treatment options.
Prof Solomon is also co-lead of the ASPiRATION trial which is providing comprehensive genomic testing to 1,000 newly diagnosed patients with lung cancer across Australia.
This identifies if a patient has any of a wide array of genetic targets (including ROS1 but many others) for which a targeted drug may be available, or in clinical trials.
This enables patients who are not responding well to conventional treatments to be diverted to drugs more likely to work for them, an approach known as “precision medicine”.
“Increasingly we see that understanding the genetic drivers of lung cancer in each patient is the key to improving outcomes,” Prof Solomon says.
“Targeted drugs, while not yet a cure, are extending life and improving quality of life for people with lung cancer and we’re starting to see the benefits in terms of improved long-term survival.”
November is Lung Cancer Awareness Month.
Find out more about Lung Cancer Awareness Month and how to spot the symptoms
During the Christmas/New Year break, the Wellbeing Centre will be closed on all public holidays, with reduced hours on other days as follows:
Normal hours will resume from Tuesday 3rd January, 9:00am - 5:00pm. We will be also closed on Australia Day (Thursday, 26 January 2023).
From all the team in the Wellbeing Centre, we wish all our patients, carers and colleagues a very merry Christmas and a safe and happy New Year!
On International Volunteers Day, we thank our volunteers for their many contributions.
Volunteers fulfil an integral role across many areas of Peter Mac. Each day, patients and carers access services designed to ease their cancer journey and make their hospital stay more comfortable.
Our volunteers provide a huge range of support services.
In the first half of 2022 they fitted 86 wigs for patients experiencing hair loss, and delivered 838 product bags to inpatients. They sewed 176 breast pillows, 370 hand-crafted bags, and 503 pieces of headwear.
Volunteers manage the Peter Mac Auxiliary Group, running a shop of handcrafted items that has been raising funds for nearly 40 years, and providing items direct to patients to improve their care and experience.
Many volunteers also contribute to the Nancy Kinsella Patients’ Library, offering a wide variety of items from books to puzzles, for the enjoyment of both inpatients and outpatients.
Speaking to volunteers Heather, Clarel, and Astrid, it’s clear that they love their work.
“If I can make someone smile I’m a very happy woman - if I can make them laugh I’m even happier. If somebody needs something I’m happy to do it,” says Heather, who has worked as a volunteer for four years.
“It’s rewarding for me as a person, and fulfilling. What I give out I get back in spades,” she says.
Peter Mac’s volunteers create and maintain comfortable spaces like the Wellbeing Centre or Patient Library, which have a welcoming and inviting atmosphere than a ward or treatment room.
“It’s totally different there,” Astrid says, “you make people tea and coffee and just speak with them. You soon learn how to approach people and be sensitive to their needs and how they’re feeling”.
While some of the team have been directly affected by cancer and hope to pass on the care and support they received, others are here because they want “to do something worthwhile”, as Heather puts it.
Clarel explained that the strength of the team is invaluable.
“The best part about [the team] is the environment - the support, the atmosphere of validation that you get out from being here.”
Peter Mac’s volunteer service is newly reinvigorated following the pandemic, with volunteers clearly happy to be back on-site.
Peter Mac thanks every amazing volunteer and the staff that support them for their work, care, and dedication.
Click this link to learn more about volunteering at Peter Mac.