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Engaged Members
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Inside News
Dr Liz Kenny
Adjunct Professor, School of Medicine, University of Queensland;
Senior Radiation Oncologist, Royal Brisbane and Women’s
Hospital; Medical Director, Central Integrated Regional
Cancer Service (CIRCS); Medical Director, Herston Imaging
Research Facility; Chair, Statewide Cancer Clinical Network,
Queensland Health
Co-opted member of the Faculty of Radiation Oncology Council
Background
When I was asked to consider being
co-opted onto the Faculty Council, I
gave this most gracious invitation a
great deal of thought before accepting.
Having been so involved in the College
previously, I had considered it so very
appropriate to have our younger
colleagues with fresh ideas lead our
future and I consider that they have
done so with great aplomb. It has been
a great source of pride and satisfaction
to see the Faculty flourish.
The issues that we deal with have
not changed, but evolved somewhat.
Governments come and go and senior
bureaucrats who become familiar with
the issues surrounding our complex
specialty then move on, requiring a
constant updating of government
teams.
Why I Am Involved
With patient care central to our specialty
and with sophisticated and rapidly
evolving technology at our fingertips,
caring for patients at a most vulnerable
time of their life is a rare privilege. It is
unique in medicine. Targeting cancer
has never been so meaningful and
through the Targeting Cancer campaign,
our patients become our greatest
advocates.
Even though we are champions of
multidisciplinary care, the importance
of local cure is not well appreciated.
Local therapies have been mostly
overshadowed by systemic treatment,
yet radiation therapy, like surgery,
contributes greatly to local and hence
systemic cure and of course to symptom
control in many patients. Bringing the
cancer community and our funders to
rethink how cancer care and research is
funded will be critical moving forward
with drug expenditure spiralling
steadily upwards for increasingly small
gains. These are going to be difficult
community discussions. The importance
of effective local and systemic treatment
needs to be upfront and central.
There is a wonderful opportunity within
our College for us to partner with our
interventional radiology colleagues,
who also have rapidly evolving and
amazing technology at their fingertips
and who can also contribute in a major
way to local cancer treatment. We must
be at the forefront of managing the
appropriate use of all of this technology.
We need to constantly refine the
evidence to support patient selection
and to reduce morbidity of treatment.
Encouragement to Others
We are a cancer College in every respect
from diagnosis though treatment. It is
my firm view that an emphasis on quality
in every aspect of our care will underpin
our future. We need to be embedded in
and champion multidisciplinary teams.
We need to be experts at what we do,
understand our limitations and on-refer
to other expert radiation oncologists
when required. We also need to ensure
that our junior and regional colleagues
are well supported.
I look forward to supporting the Faculty
in any way that I can.
Dr Liz Kenny
“It is my firm view
that an emphasis
on quality in every
aspect of our care will
underpin our future.”