December 2019

The Clinical Oncology Society of Australia (COSA) is a multidisciplinary society for health professionals whose work involves the care of cancer patients. An Annual Scientific Meeting (ASM) is held each November, and the 2019 ASM was held in sunny Adelaide, South Australia, at the Adelaide Convention Centre. The theme for the ASM was ‘Putting Precision and Personalisation into Practice’ and focussed on urogenital cancers, age and gender in cancer practice, and digital health in cancer.

 

In 2014, I gained an exciting job in a cancer center in Accra-Ghana. I was a young newly qualified pharmacist, and cancer was an emerging disease trend in Ghana and across Africa. I felt truly privileged to be amongst the few Pharmacists helping to combat this disease state. Being the only female Pharmacist in the practice at the time was also such a privilege.

 

By Esin Aysel Kandemir, Turkish Medicines and Medical Devices Agency

 

I, Atalay Mulu Fentie, have been working as a clinical pharmacist and oncology pharmacy service case team coordinator since September, 2013 at Tikur Anbessa Specialized Hospital and lecturer at School of Pharmacy, Addis Ababa University since June, 2017. My role is doing cancer related research projects, teaching pharmacy students, supervising nurses doing chemo-admixture and providing accurate and up-to-date evidence based information to other health care team members during major clinical rounds; which all would impact the clinical decision process and even patient treatment outcomes.

 

I have been working as a clinical pharmacist for over 9 years in many different areas including general medicine, cardiology, infectious disease and intensive care. I have been working as an oncology pharmacist at Peter MacCallum cancer center in Australia for the last 3 years.

 

I am clinical pharmacist working at the Peter MacCallum Cancer Centre, Victoria, Australia. Through the past few years I have taken on several diverse roles at the Peter Mac, including running an outpatient radiotherapy clinic and conducting a large randomised controlled trial to assess the effectiveness of pharmacy services for our patients.

 

Now in its fifth year running, the ESMO Asia Congress was held at the Suntec Convention and Exhibition Centre, Singapore this year. Like the sunny weather, the opening ceremony started off brightly with a cultural dance performance, introducing guests to the sights and sounds from the four official races.