RANZCR: Tripartite Teaching Visit to Cancer Centres in Cambodia and Vietnam

The Royal Australian and New Zealand College of Radiologists (RANZCR)

Inside News March 2020

In May 2019, representatives from the Asia-Pacific Radiation Oncology Special Interest Group (APROSIG), together with representatives from the Australasian College of Physical Scientists and Engineers in Medicine (ACPSEM) and the Australian Society of Medical Imaging and Radiation Therapy (ASMIRT), visited cancer centres in Southeast Asia to provide two weeks of targeted training. The visit was funded by a RANZCR International Development Fund grant.

The team first visited Ho Chi Minh City Oncology Hospital (HCMCOH), the largest public cancer centre in Vietnam and flagship centre for the south of Vietnam. This visit followed up a previous tripartite visit in 2017 and aimed to provide education and training in the use of IGRT, given the department had just installed two new Varian TrueBeam machines. The teaching visit also aimed to build on the prior training provided by Australian Riding to The Top (RTT) volunteer, Mr Vu Hunyh who had been based there for eight years. The team consisted of radiation oncologists Dr Iain Ward, Dr Mei Ling Yap and Dr Shaun Costello, Range of Motion Project (ROMP) volunteer Dr Stéphanie Corde and RTT volunteer Mr Craig Opie.

Mr Ngia (physicist at HCMCOH, Vietnam) and tripartite team in front of one of the two new Varian TrueBeam machines

APROSIG team members with National Cancer Centre (Cambodia) staff during their tumour board meeting

The team provided lecturers on topics which had been identified by the HCMCOH team as key learning needs. These topics included principles of IGRT, quality assurance for IGRT and deep inspiration breath hold (DBIH). As well, the team spent time observing the clinics and planning/treatment practices of HCMCOH and were able to provide practical teaching. Since the May visit, there has been ongoing virtual support by the team members, including provision of advice for the start of the centre’s stereotactic brain program.

This was followed by a return visit to the National Cancer Centre (NCC) in Phnom Penh, Cambodia, a recently built centre which our team has been collaborating with since 2016. During the past three years, volunteer Australian medical physicists and radiation therapists have spent from months up to a year each in Phnom Penh training Cambodian staff to help ensure a successful and safe start to the department. This visit aimed to observe the practices of the Cambodian centre which had, for the first time, been without Australian volunteer support for a period of five months and to provide targeted training. Dr Karen Lim (radiation oncologist) and Ms Brianna Minns joined the team for the Cambodian visit. The team observed that the NCC had established a solid foundation for the delivery of safe and accurate radiotherapy. Patient set-up and treatment processes were reliable, sophisticated 3D conformal treatment plans were being delivered and there was a strong quality assurance program. During their time there, the team also helped develop a framework for ‘Nursing transition to radiation therapy practice’, a 12-month training program which Ms Brianna Minns will help to implement during her upcoming RTT volunteer placement in late 2020. This program will be important, as there is no formal radiation therapy training program in Cambodia and a number of nurses at the NCC have been identified to take on the role of an RTT without prior training. The radiation oncologists focused on helping to develop treatment guidelines and data collection sheets for breast, cervix and nasopharynx cancers. This will be consolidated when Dr Shaun Costello returns for a volunteer training stint later this year.

We would like to thank RANZCR for its continuing funding support through the IDF grant. If you are interested in becoming involved in Asia-Pacific training, please contact:

Mei Ling Yap meiling.yap@health.nsw.gov.au

Iain Ward Iain.Ward@cdhb.health.nz