Left: Andrea McNiven with Dr Khalid Al Saleh Centre: Eugene Yu of Princess Margaret during a lecture Right: The Princess Margaret team – Eugene Yu, Michael Holwell, Meredith Giuliani, Andrea McNiven
This past March, the radiation medicine team from Princess Margaret Cancer Centre took a trip to Kuwait to further strengthen their four-year partnership with the Kuwait Cancer Control Centre (KCCC). From March 14, 2014 to March 28, 2014, UT DRO faculty members Meredith Giuliani and Andrea McNiven, alongside their Princess Margaret colleagues Michael Holwell and Eugene Yu, delivered a three-day course on Head and Neck IMRT.
The Princess Margaret team “worked directly with the KCCC local planning committee to come up with topics, learning objectives, and content,” explained Meredith Giuliani. “The Kuwaiti team provided the cases for the practical sessions. We worked through real issues that they were facing day-to-day in the clinic.”
The 18-hour course was divided into nine hours of didactic lectures, and nine hours of practical hands-on sessions on contouring and planning using KCCC case examples on nasopharynx, hypopharynx, larynx and thyroid cancer. The Canadian clinicians also covered modern contouring, radiation nomenclature, planning techniques, and optimization for simple IMRT plans.
The attendees included the entire radiation medicine team at KCCC. Treatment was suspended during the course to enable the treatment-unit therapists to attend alongside the oncologists, physicists, neuro-radiologists, and some surgeons.
The course was very well-received by the KCCC team, with standing-room only in the practical sessions. Our team at Princess Margaret continues to develop a positive relationship with the clinicians at KCCC and hopes that similar courses with follow in the months to come.
