Every two minutes, one woman dies of cervical cancer worldwide. While Australia is making headway in eliminating this disease, an alumnus of the Women’s is passionate about the role we must play in improving health outcomes for women in lower-income countries.
Professor Michael Quinn AM was the keynote speaker at the Women’s 2024 Tracy Maund Oration. The former Director of Oncology at the Women’s said that ovarian cancer is still one of the biggest killers of women.
“In 2020, 342,000 women died of cervical cancer worldwide,” Prof. Quinn said during his oration.
“The vast majority of these women died in low- and middle-income countries. They died untreated, uncared for, and unloved. These women would have developed many complications and would have suffered great pain.”
The worst is, as Prof. Quinn said, that cervical cancer is preventable and treatable.
For the past seven years, he has made it his mission to detect and screen for cervical cancer in disadvantaged countries – and to train up the local workforce.
As founder of the IGCS Global Curriculum and Mentorship Program, Prof. Quinn has built up a network of international volunteer mentors. They train women's cancer care professionals in low-and middle-income countries by sharing their expertise and knowledge.
This program has a simple idea: More trained professionals means more women can access cancer care.
The program has made impressive progress since its start in 2015.
“We’ve performed 11,000 operations and more than 4700 simple hysterectomies. We have 52 graduated fellows, 42 enrolled fellows, 45 international mentors, 23 sites, and 53 local supervisors.
"Most of these sites have now produced the first-ever gynaecologic oncologists in their country," Prof. Quinn said.
The next step is to ensure that the trainees remain in their country of origin and become the trainers. The aim is to continue to build up the local women’s cancer workforce.
Prof. Quinn said there is still much to do. But he stressed that these programs have real impact ... and they follow the great altruistic tradition of the Women’s founders, Richard Tracy and John Maund.
About Professor Michael Quinn AM
Professor Michael Quinn has served for decades as a gynaecological oncology specialist.
After graduating from the University of Glasgow in 1973, he trained in Canada. He then became a consultant at the Peter MacCallum Cancer Centre. At the Women’s, he served as Director of Oncology for two decades until 2008.
His work has been recognised with numerous honours. These include being named Victorian of the Year and an AM in 2015 for his contributions to gynaecological oncology.
Prof. Quinn AM is a co-founder of The Australian Society of Gynaecologic Oncologists (ASGO), the Asia-Oceania Research Organisation in Genital Infection and Neoplasia (AOGIN) and the Australia New Zealand Gynaecological Oncology Group (ANZGOG). He established the Women's Career Committee at RANZCOG and the Genetics and Cancer Clinics across Victoria.
His legacy includes over 350 publications and multiple monographs. He raised over A$1 million for gynaecological oncology research through various endurance events. He also raised A$3 million for renovations to the Women's oncology unit at the former site in Carlton.
