PRMs Collaborative Conversation Series - Dr Michala Short

Dr Michala Short image

Dr Michala Short

Senior Lec­tur­er in Radi­a­tion Ther­a­py at the Uni­ver­si­ty of South Aus­tralia and a qual­i­fied Radi­a­tion Therapist

Affil­i­a­tions: Mem­ber — Aus­tralian Soci­ety of Med­ical Imag­ing and Radi­a­tion Ther­a­py; Affil­i­ate Mem­ber — Trans Tas­man Radi­a­tion. - Oncol­o­gy Group

Q&A with Michala

What inter­est­ed you about patient report­ed mea­sures research and/​or projects?

My PROMs research so far has focused on long term health-relat­ed qual­i­ty of life after radi­a­tion ther­a­py in patients diag­nosed with breast, prostate and pan­cre­at­ic can­cer. The biggest achieve­ment so far is our cur­rent project fund­ed by THRF and part­nered with the WCH, RAH and Can­cer Voic­es SA, where we are devel­op­ing a child-friend­ly online health-relat­ed qual­i­ty of life plat­form. Ini­tial­ly this was going to be offered only to young patients who go on to receive radi­a­tion, but it will now be expand­ed to include all young chil­dren diag­nosed with can­cer. This will make a huge dif­fer­ence to chil­dren and fam­i­lies and we hope it will pro­vide anoth­er way to empow­er kids dur­ing treat­ment and beyond.

What is your biggest achieve­ment in rela­tion to patient report­ed mea­sures research, or the appli­ca­tion of research into practice?

With patient-focused research like ours it’s essen­tial we con­nect with the com­mu­ni­ty to inform what we do and how we do it. One approach that’s worked for me has been to link with Can­cer Voic­es SA, a com­mu­ni­ty of vol­un­teers touched by can­cer in some way. Can­cer Voic­es SA has con­nect­ed us with con­sumers who can ensure our research direc­tion aligns with patients’ needs and there­fore makes a mean­ing­ful dif­fer­ence to patients. As with all col­lab­o­ra­tions, they need an invest­ment of time and effort to be strong. A way we can advance this, is cre­at­ing oppor­tu­ni­ties for con­sumer groups and researchers to get togeth­er to talk about shared goals for improv­ing peo­ple’s health outcomes.

How do you approach col­lab­o­ra­tion with con­sumers, car­ers and com­mu­ni­ty? Or how do think we can work togeth­er to keep mak­ing advance­ments in this space?

With patient-focused research like ours it’s essen­tial we con­nect with the com­mu­ni­ty to inform what we do and how we do it. One approach that’s worked for me has been to link with Can­cer Voic­es SA, a com­mu­ni­ty of vol­un­teers touched by can­cer in some way. Can­cer Voic­es SA has con­nect­ed us with con­sumers who can ensure our research direc­tion aligns with patients’ needs and there­fore makes a mean­ing­ful dif­fer­ence to patients. As with all col­lab­o­ra­tions, they need an invest­ment of time and effort to be strong. A way we can advance this, is cre­at­ing oppor­tu­ni­ties for con­sumer groups and researchers to get togeth­er to talk about shared goals for improv­ing peo­ple’s health outcomes.

Con­tact Michala

View oth­er pro­files in the PRMs Col­lab­o­ra­tive Con­ver­sa­tion Series.