Prostate Forum - Queensland Health

Chair:  Leisa Brown

Speakers Biographies

Shona McKenzie, Nurse Practitioner, Royal Brisbane & Women’s Hospital

Shona has worked at the Royal Brisbane & Women’s Hospital in the Department of Urology since 2003. Initially working in the CNC continence role she was offered a scholarship to complete the masters in Nurse Practitioner through University of Queensland in 2006. Shona received her Nurse Practitioner endorsement in 2007 and was appointed as NP continence / urology in that year. Since then she has been working with the visiting urologists to develop and extend the role.

Dr Peter Swindle, Urologist, Queensland Prostate Clinic

Dr Peter Swindle is an urologist who specialises solely in prostate cancer and diseases of the prostate. His expertise lies in robotic prostatectomy and prostate brachytherapy. Dr Swindle has extensive radical prostatectomy experience of over 1,300 cases including robotic prostatectomy, open radical prostatectomy and laparoscopic radical prostatectomy. He has established the Queensland Prostate Clinic, which functions to provide comprehensive information on screening and detection of prostate cancer as well as up to date information on treatment options for men with prostate cancer.

Dr Swindle completed advanced urological training in Queensland in 2000. During his urological training, he also completed a Masters of Surgery at the University of Sydney on prostate cancer. Following on from his general urology training, he undertook a two year subspecialty Fellowship at Memorial Sloan-Kettering Cancer Centre in New York focusing on prostate cancer. He has also completed an American Brachytherapy Fellowship at the Seattle Prostate Institute on prostate brachytherapy.

Dr Glen Wood, Urologist, Brisbane Urology Clinic

Dr Glen Wood completed a Science degree and 2 years of full time research at Monash University, Victoria prior to completing his medical degree at the University of Queensland. He completed his advanced surgical training in Urology in Queensland and spent a further year in Christchurch, New Zealand gaining experience in Laser stone surgery and the diagnosis and treatment of Prostate Cancer.

Dr Wood has completed training in Seed Brachytherapy at the Seattle Prostate Institute and founded Queenslands first brachytherapy program at the Greenslopes Private Hospital in 2003. His interests include diagnosis and management of prostate cancer, stones and infertility.

Dr Wood is a member of the Royal Australasian College of Surgeons Court of Examiners and is one of the founding surgeons in the establishment and development of the Greenslopes Hospital Robotic radical prostatectomy program.

Dr Geoff Coughlin, Prostate Care Qld

Geoff Coughlin is an Urologist at the Royal Brisbane and Women’s Hospital, and a visiting medical practitioner at the Wesley Hospital.  He commenced robotic surgery programs at these hospitals in 2009 and 2010 respectively.  Dr Coughlin has an interest in robotic surgery and prostate cancer and is currently involved in clinical trials within these disciplines.

Dr Colleen Nelson, Director, Australian Prostate Cancer Research Centre - Queensland

Colleen Nelson is the founding Executive Director of the APCRC-Q as well as the founder and Director of the Prostate Cancer Research Collaborative Alliance (PCCRA). The PCCRA initiative was developed to coordinate national and international network interactions between Australian and Canadian prostate cancer scientists and clinicians.  Since arriving in Australia in 2007, Colleen has received substantial awards to establish large scale prostate cancer initiatives from the Federal and Queensland Government, PCFA, Australian Cancer Research Foundation, and Cancer Australia for research and infrastructure, including the prestigious Smart Futures Premier’s Fellowship as Queensland’s top Scientist in 2009.  She was previously a founding scientist of Vancouver Prostate Centre, a National Centre of Excellence in Research and Commercialization, working with the VPC Director, Dr Martin Gleave, to obtain research grants over $100M from key biomedical funding agencies and industry in North America to establish the Centre.  Colleen’s expertise is in translational prostate cancer research, particularly in identifying potential therapeutic targets through expression profiling, and taking the findings through the pipeline of experimental and pathological validation to clinical application.  She is especially interested in the hormonal progression of prostate cancer following androgen deprivation to castrate resistant prostate cancer. Her team substantially contributed to the seminal discovery that CRPC tumors can synthesize their own androgen. She is investigating the inter-relationships of androgen synthesis, prostate cancer progression, and metabolic syndrome.  She continues to study androgen and stress regulated pathways in prostate cancer progression. She has been on several Strategic and Scientific Advisory Boards for Biotech, NGOs and Government, was the inaugural Director of the Microarray Platform for Genome Canada 2000-2009, and is currently the Chair of the Global Scientific Committee of Movember’s Global Action Plan.

Sylvia Burns, Cancer Council Queensland

Sylvia Burns is a Registered Nurse with a background in Oncology and Palliative Care. From 2005 to 2012, Sylvia worked as a Nurse Counsellor with the Cancer Council Queensland in the area of prostate cancer education and support.

In this role she was involved in the development and trial of supportive care interventions as part of Cancer Council Queensland’s Prostate Cancer Research Program. She has compiled and developed patient resources including the CCQ’s Sex after Treatment Booklet and various intervention manuals and support materials.

Her work in prostate cancer has involved providing support to men and to couples as well as assisting in the development of novel peer support programs, training and supervising men who have survived prostate cancer to deliver support to newly diagnosed men and their partners.

Sylvia has also been involved in the Mindfulness and Cancer program at the Cancer Council Queensland, facilitating Mindfulness Based Cognitive Therapy groups for people affected by cancer.

Currently Sylvia is manager of cancer support services at Cancer Council Queensland.

Jill Costello, ManUp! Qld

Jill started ManUp! after she was diagnosed with breast cancer in 2005 at age of 47.  She had the very first breast cancer care nurse at the Mater Private Hospital. She was a God send, she was Jill’s lifeline for 5 years, answering her questions, keeping her motivated, coordinating her appointments and counselling her on many occasions.

Jill’s husband was diagnosed with prostate cancer in 2009. While his surgeon was wonderful he did not have the time to support the family through this particular cancer journey. Jill came in contact with many other men who were struggling with the side effects of prostate cancer treatment and felt very much on their own. Hence the founding of ManUp!.  ManUp! is all about support and advocacy. The vision is that every man living with prostate cancer will have a prostate cancer care nurse who will be able to deliver the support he needs.

Lorraine Hagaman, Prostate Foundation

Lorraine comes from a background of over 15 years as a Team Leader and Trainer in Mental Health, mostly training in Psycho Social Skills and Assertiveness based on the Emotional Intelligence Framework.

Lorraine has a Double Major in Business in both Organisational Communication and Public Relations, a Grad Dip in Social Science - Counselling and has specialised in group work and group training. Lorraine also has a Cert 4 in Workplace Training and Assessment and is currently studying Health Sciences.

Lorraine is currently employed as Support Group and Outreach Coordinator Queensland with Prostate Cancer Foundation of Australia.

Prof Patsy Yates, Professor of Nursing, Institute of Health and Biomedical Innovation, QUT

Patsy is jointly appointed as Professor of Nursing with the Institute of Health and Biomedical Innovation at Queensland University of Technology, and Director for Queensland Health’s Centre for Palliative Care Research and Education. She leads a program of research aimed at improving quality of life for people with cancer, having completed studies evaluating interventions for people experiencing cancer related symptoms including pain, breathlessness, fatigue and nausea.  Patsy has been co-lead for Cancer Australia’s National Cancer Nursing Education project since its inception.