Gynecological Cancer

Health Policy

EDU 26 - Out from the Shadows and into the Spotlight: Making Brachytherapy Available and Sustainable for Our Patients and Providers

Moderator(s)

• 

  Beth Erickson, MD, FASTRO

  Medical College of Wisconsin
  Milwaukee, WI
• 

  Anne Hubbard, MBA

  American Society for Radiation Oncology
  Arlington, Virginia, United States

This session will reinforce the value of brachytherapy in the curative treatment of patients with advanced gynecologic cancers and detail the challenges in operationalizing complex gynecologic brachytherapy within a busy external beam department. Increasingly, many centers with brachytherapy expertise are coordinating the care of patients with external beam elsewhere and with significant social and medical challenges. The necessary training, equipment, time, personnel and facility space, organized around a sound business plan to optimally support brachytherapy, will be explored using the most recent literature and experience of experts in the field. This session will disclose and bring awareness to these challenges to stimulate strategies for assuring the accessibility, sustainability and growth of this essential curative treatment modality.

Presentations:

• 3:00 PM – 3:02 PM ET

  Introductions
  

  Speaker: Beth Erickson, MD, FASTRO – Medical College of Wisconsin
• 3:02 PM – 3:17 PM ET

  The Show Must Go On: A Day in the Life of a Brachytherapist
  

  Speaker: Emma Fields, MD – Virginia Commonwealth University
• 3:17 PM – 3:32 PM ET

  The Plot Thickens: Building in Value for Brachytherapy
  

  Speaker: Melissa Joyner, MD, MBA – MD Anderson Cancer Center
• 3:32 PM – 3:47 PM ET

  Grand Finale: Flood Lights on Ingenuity and Creativity
  

  Speaker: Beth Erickson, MD, FASTRO – Medical College of Wisconsin
• 3:47 PM – 4:00 PM ET

  Questions and Answers
  

  Speaker: Anne Hubbard, MBA – American Society for Radiation Oncology