Professor David Currow: face of a new era

Personal stories

Issue 3, March 2010

Our new CEO, Professor David Currow, is looking forward to the new opportunities working for the Cancer Institute will bring to enhance the lives of people diagnosed with cancer.

Brought up in Newcastle, Professor David Currow held clinical roles in Sydney at Westmead and Nepean hospitals before going on to complete a Masters of Public Health at the University of Sydney. Now, as the new Chief Cancer Officer of NSW and our CEO, he is coming back to his roots and is looking forward to working with the people who mentored him throughout his study.

"I have been fortunate to have some extraordinary teachers in my undergraduate years and in my postgraduate training," he says. "Many of those clinicians are still practising in NSW, still teaching, and still providing day-to-day evidence of excellence in clinical practice that others can only attempt to emulate."

David's career has taken him from foundation director of the Nepean Cancer Care Centre, Chair of Palliative and Supportive Services at Flinders University to foundation CEO of Cancer Australia, the Australian Government's National Cancer Control Agency, before signing on to the Cancer Institute. While his experience and expertise now includes a wide range of areas in cancer control, he still maintains his passion for palliative care, making sure that people aren't forgotten once they've received a terminal diagnosis of cancer.

"There are an extraordinary group of people at the Cancer Institute who are committed to improving cancer outcomes. It is going to be a wonderful environment in which to work."

"The reason working in palliative care is important is that it is about the art of the possible," he explains. "It is the time of people's lives when they really focus on what is important to them. When you have limited life expectancy, limited energy and potentially limited mobility, a person really does focus on the things that mean the most to them. Ensuring they can make the most use of that time is a privilege."

While David misses the side of clinical work that brings him into day-to-day contact with patients and their families, he believes this is an area that will be of vital importance to the work of the Cancer Institute in the future.

"Working within government, we need to keep the focus on the patient and the family," he says. "This can be maintained by listening repeatedly and constantly to how their needs are being met and how their needs could be better met. Each of us within the Institute needs to ensure that we are hearing the issues that can improve cancer control in order to influence this.

"The Cancer Institute has a unique role not only within the state, but within Australia and arguably within South East Asia," explains David. "Internationally, there are very few organisations that are really given the breadth of remit and the resources to make a difference in cancer in the way that the Cancer Institute NSW has been. The Cancer Institute NSW is uniquely positioned to genuinely improve the cancer outcomes across the range of cancers that affect our community.

"The opportunities to lessen the impact of cancer across the community make the organisation a very attractive place to be over the next decade."

"This is an energetic organisation with a lot of people who are committed to improving cancer control and a passion for the work that is being done and for the work that has yet to be done. To see that passion translate into improved cancer outcomes is an exciting opportunity."

Even though he sees enormous potential in the work of the Cancer Institute over the next decade, he believes that one of the keys to our success is to ensure we continue to strengthen the collaborations with all groups who are interested in cancer control.

"Through these collaborations, we can have the widest possible reach to improve cancer outcomes in our state and to demonstrate to other states and territories and to the region that this can be achieved," he says.

And his own personal vision of reducing cancer in New South Wales?

"That we can reduce lifestyle risk factors across the community, demonstrate that cancer is being diagnosed earlier and that having been diagnosed that we are genuinely improving survival not only for the frequently encountered cancers but systematically across the range of cancer encountered in our community," he says. "For those who have been treated for cancer, there needs to be renewed energy put into ensuring that they are able to reengage with life wherever possible. This includes physical and psychological support to recover from cancer and its treatment. If a person's life is going to be shortened because of cancer, ensuring that they have access to the world's best evidence-based palliative care is also crucially important.

"Together these things really generate a motivation to ensure that the health of our community is better as a result of the work that we as a team will do into the future."