Keynote Speakers
Ms Catherine Beaufort, OAM, Operations Manager of Alfred Health Radiation Oncology
Cath has spent her career working as a Radiation Therapist, primarily at Alfred Health. Several years into her career, she undertook a Master of Public Health and during this time an opportunity came up to volunteer for 3 months at Papua New Guinea’s only cancer centre in Lae. In 2011 Cath travelled to Lae to train the 3 local Radiation Therapists on their recently installed planning computers and assist in technique development. During this time she worked with the University of Technology PNG to assist in setting up a Bachelor of Science in Radiation Therapy course. Since this time Cath has travelled to PNG many times to teach the student Radiation Therapists.
Over the course of her Radiation Therapy career she has also specialised in brachytherapy.
Identifying a gap in teaching in brachytherapy she worked with a Medical Physicist to set up a national training course for Radiation Therapists, Medical Physicists and Radiation Oncologists which has been run out of The Alfred for several years now.
She also helped to mentor a Malaysian urologist in prostate brachytherapy who was visiting The Alfred for a fellowship, and who then engaged her to set up a training course in Malaysia and, with a couple of colleagues, assist the team to commence a prostate brachytherapy programme at the National Cancer Institute in Kuala Lumpur.
Mentoring of other teams in prostate brachytherapy has also included at The Canberra Hospital and the Canterbury Regional Cancer and Haematology Service in Christchurch, NZ.
In more recent years, Catherine has set up a prostate brachytherapy programme in Gippsland, based out of the Alfred’s Radiation Oncology department, located at Latrobe Regional Hospital.
She is currently Operations Manager for Alfred Health Radiation Oncology.
Alistair Hamilton, Retrieval Physician, LifeFlight Retrieval Medicine
Alistair is a Retrieval Physician with LifeFlight Retrieval Medicine and an Emergency Physician at Toowoomba Hospital. He is the Co-Clinical Lead of the Toowoomba LifeFlight base, which services the busy Darling Downs region and beyond.
Along with retrieval medicine, his main areas of interest include trauma management and systems, blood product transfusion and medical education.
Danielle Spence, Head of the Strategy and Support Division, Cancer Council Victoria
Danielle has extensive experience working in the health care industry across a range of organisations including public, private and not-for-profit agencies. She has a background in oncology nursing with a Masters in Breast Care Nursing. She has served on numerous cancer care advisory groups and worked in senior policy and advocacy positions in leading cancer organisations. She previously worked as the Director of Policy & Advocacy at Breast Cancer Network Australia.
Danielle is passionate about ensuring patients have equitable access to quality cancer care and has worked on national and international campaigns to improve and extend the lives of people living with advanced disease