Monash women are at the forefront of fighting and treating breast cancer. A breast surgeon, a breast-care nurse and a researcher shared their stories with LISELOTTE JOHNSSON and LINDA JONES.
DESPITE being personally touched by a relative diagnosed with breast cancer was not why breast surgeon Jane Fox was drawn to the field.
Rather, it is the teamwork and the continually developing research and treatments that attracted, and has kept, Dr Fox at Southern Health's breast services, where she has worked for 15 years.
"My mother had breast cancer when I was 15 and another time when I was 35 or 36 and then she died of old age at 84.
"My experience has been very much the experience we hope that most people dealing with this will have."
Indeed, Dr Fox said the outcome of breast cancer patients was often quite good, and the unit treated "lots of women who go on to have a normal life".
She said the vast majority of patients would have surgery as initial treatment, having a local excision of affected tissue, often followed by radiotherapy, chemotherapy and other treatments.
But each patient was assessed individually to determine the best treatment, with a multi-disciplinary team of surgeons, oncologists, radiotherapists, researchers, nurses and other medical and support staff meeting regularly.
Medical advances over the past decade had improved the odds of survival further and support services had also improved.
Dr Fox said the improvements were due to the hard work of all people involved in the field.
She also attributed them to the many women who had battled breast cancer and who had shared their experiences to improve the response.
Breast care nurse Carmel Kelleher agreed, saying the patients they worked with made the job very fulfilling.
Mrs Kelleher moved into breast care nursing after more than 20 years as a nurse at Southern Health.
She said her role was to be a constant in the patients' journey through the health system and often involved liaising between medical staff and other support services and ensuring they had accurate information about the disease and treatment options.
"They tend to phone us for any queries, then we do the chasing up for them. We see them on day one and throughout."
Sometimes, it involved the inevitable - when some patients developed terminal cancer and moved into the oncology ward under palliative services.
"By then you've built up a rapport and we continue supporting them," Mrs Kelleher said.
She said her unit of five nurses saw 350 new patients during 2008. In 2006, 22 men were among more than 3000 people diagnosed with breast cancer in Victoria.
Mrs Kelleher said the support organisations had become much better at supporting this minority group and the younger women who were also sometimes diagnosed with the disease.
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