Monday Lunch Livestream

Equitable education for the cancer workforce

15 May 2023

Centre for Cancer Education Launch

In today's fast-paced environment, there is a growing need for accessible, on-demand education for a time-poor workforce.

Discover how the new VCCC Alliance Centre for Cancer Education provides a ‘one-stop-shop’ in cancer education, offering a plethora of learning opportunities for you and your colleagues.

Founded on the principle that quality education is fundamental to every aspect of overcoming cancer, the new Centre for Cancer Education provides cutting-edge educational programming for healthcare professionals, researchers, educators, and consumers.

Developed in partnership with The University of Melbourne, a key component of the Centre for Cancer Education is a dynamic, interactive learning portal that provides a gateway to extensive educational content developed by a dedicated team and subject matter experts. This is underpinned by rigorous education principles and governance providing a comprehensive and engaging cancer education experience that is available to everyone.

This is the first comprehensive cancer resource of this kind in Australia, designed to bring quality education to the cancer workforce – wherever they are - in Victoria. Australia and beyond.

Spotlight Course: Fundamentals of Cancer Nursing Care 

Our launch showcased how the centre will transform accessible cancer education as we share a brand new resource, purpose-built for the platform – Fundamentals of Cancer Nursing Care.

Care of people affected by cancer in non-cancer wards or units is common across health services. As the number of Australians with a cancer diagnosis continues to grow, the demand for oncology care is outstripped by the availability of specialised nurse resources.

This presents challenges to the delivery of optimal cancer care and results in feelings of stress among nurses expected to care for people affected by a cancer diagnosis without the requisite specialist knowledge.

Fundamentals of Cancer Nursing Care is a self-directed, self-paced interactive learning course of six 30-minute modules that participants can complete in their own time.

This new resource was developed by the Academic Nursing Unit at the Peter MacCallum Cancer Centre, Victorian Cancer Covid-19 Network (VCCN) Oncology Expert Nursing Group and the VCCC Alliance, to address this key need and support nurses to provide better care for patients, wherever they live.

A celebration of accessible education

The VCCC Alliance Centre for Cancer Education offers a globally accessible, digital education portal dedicated to upskilling the cancer workforce to meet current, and future, needs, opportunities and challenges.

The centre is supported by the Victorian State Government through the VCCC Alliance Strategic Program Plan 2021-24.

Chair

Professor Grant McArthur 
Executive Director, VCCC Alliance

Presenters

Professor Mei Krishnasamy 
Deputy Chair, Cancer Research Advisory Committee (CRAC)

Professor Mei Krishnasamy is the VCCC Alliance Deputy Chair of the Cancer Research Advisory Committee (CRAC), and Research and Education Lead for Nursing. She is Director of the Academic Nursing Unit at Peter MacCallum Cancer Centre, honorary Chair in Cancer Nursing at the University of Melbourne, and a past President of the Clinical Oncology Society of Australia (2014-2022) and Cancer Nurses Society of Australia.

Jessica Balson
Co-Chair, Centre for Cancer Education

Jessica Balson is the VCCC Alliance Deputy Chair, Cancer Education and Training Advisory Committee (CETAC) and a Nurse Unit Manager in Cancer Services at Western Health

Michelle Barrett
VCCC Alliance Head of Education

Michelle Barrett leads the Education and Training Development portfolio to develop, curate and manage educational programming that supports knowledge and skill development for the clinical and research cancer workforce.

Rochelle Serry
Founder, ThinkHatch Marketing & Communications

Rochelle Serry is a consumer and member of the expert reference group and steering group which developed the Centre for Cancer Education.