Thank you from the Cabrini Foundation

Cabrini Research Annual Report 2020-21 Cabrini Foundation

We would like to acknowledge and thank our donors and bequestors who support our worldclass research projects and education at Cabrini. In 2020-21 the Foundation provided $1.2 million in support of education and research. This is an outstanding contribution to progressing research and supporting the education of our staff at Cabrini and provides opportunities that would otherwise not be available.

Donors

Thanks to the generosity of major donors Mrs Lee and Mr Brian Johnstone, the Auric (meaning ‘gold’) Innovation Grant has been awarded for the past three years. This grant is designed to foster a culture of innovation throughout Cabrini to improve patient and staff experience.

In June 2021, the Auric Innovation Grant was awarded to Cabrini Technology Group Director of Operations, Josh Farrington, for a software platform (eCaptis) that digitally schedules, captures and reports patient-reported outcome measures (PROMs). eCaptis is simple and low cost to use for the patient and clinician. This digital health-based questionnaire enables patients to provide direct feedback to their treating clinician about their health-related outcomes and patient experience. We thank our Lets Beat Bowel Cancer donors for their ongoing support of the Colorectal Cancer Organoid Research Program led by Professor Paul McMurrick. This approach to personalised cancer medicine will see every patient who presents with bowel cancer treated on the basis of individual characteristics of their own tumour.

Twenty years ago, Dr Darren Lockie established a program of scholarships, grants and a lecture in memory of his partner Dr Peter Meese. We were delighted to host the 20th anniversary of the Peter Meese Memorial Lecture in March 2021 with Professor Sue Evans discussing “The impact of COVID-19 on cancer diagnoses”. The Peter Meese Memorial Nursing Research Grant was awarded to Dr Tali Lang and Kirsten Seletto for their study titled “Does automated home monitoring and management of patient-reported symptoms during systemic cancer treatment improve clinical outcomes?”

The Penny Diamond Cabrini Nursing Scholarship for Future Leaders was established by the Just Group in memory of loyal and long-term staff member Penny Diamond. The scholarship provides an opportunity for nursing leaders to undertake further education to develop skills and gain experience to take on more senior nursing roles or implement projects to improve the way Cabrini

delivers care to its patients. The first award recipient, Manager of the Cabrini Asylum Seeker Health Hub, Tracey Cabrie, will undertake the middle level leadership and management course Women & Leadership Australia – Executive Ready.

Bequests and legacies

Cabrini is always deeply grateful to all our amazing supporters who had the foresight to include a gift in their Will, to enable Cabrini to remain at the forefront in medical research and education.

Your generous and visionary legacies have allowed Cabrini to establish ground-breaking research, educational scholarships, medical infrastructure and the beginnings of our future Cabrini Cancer Institute. Above all, these gifts in Wills are helping save precious lives of future generations.

In the past year, bequests by the late Dr Betty Elliot and John Sutherland Hamling (in memory of his daughter Fiona Hamling) enabled Professor Gary Richardson OAM and senior research fellow Dr Tali Lang to develop personalised therapies for breast cancer patients using organoid and tissue microarray technologies. A gift by the late Doreen Johnson allowed Professor David Kissane AC to investigate Meaning and Purpose (MaP) Therapy in advanced cancer patients, which focuses on exploring their life's unique meaning and provides a buffer to the distress of advanced cancer.

Legacies left by the late Veronica Choo Neo Png, Gary George Conway and Elaine Berger are paving the way in pancreatic cancer, with the establishment of an Upper Gastrointestinal and Pancreatic Cancer Database.

We wish to also thank the late Lynette Manzie, Pamela Golding, Brian J Sutton FRNA and Dr Maureen MacKay, whose bequests are educating Cabrini nursing staff, expanding their knowledge, and helping them deliver the highest-quality, individualised care to our patients.

Thank you.

Above: Mrs Lee and Mr Brian Johnstone.