Going the distance for treatment

Going through cancer treatment is a harrowing process that is made even more difficult when you live in rural and remote Australia. The challenges patients and healthcare professionals face spurred JCU’s Dr Tracey Ahern to examine the role of breast care nurses — and in the process find a model that could help other cancer patients.

Dr Tracey Ahern still remembers the words that sparked her into action.

“The further someone lives from a metropolitan city the more likely they are to die from cancer.”

Having lived and worked in the North Queensland town of Ayr, the statement hit pretty close to home.

“I was from a rural area and I thought that this is so unfair,” she says. “It sparked my interest in the area of cancer research. Because I was a registered nurse, I wanted to research nurses and I was interested in exploring how they support women with breast cancer and how that could then be applied elsewhere.”

For the full story see
https://www.jcu.edu.au/brighter/articles/going-the-distance-for-treatment