Campus Review Vol. 29 Issue 3 - March 2019 | Seite 18

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in the role, where there are amazing cancer
nurses across the seven clinical partners,
who are very keen to be able to engage in
nurse-led research – those questions around
the quality and safety of cancer care that
they hadn’t the collaborative infrastructure
to do before. And that’s what my role really
brings in that domain.
Get involved
Academic urges nurses
to get into research.
Mei Krishnasamy interviewed
by Conor Burke
M
ei Krishnasamy has a strong
Cardiff accent that belies her
many years in Melbourne. The
Welsh native has been living in Australia on
and off since the early 2000s, and since
2016 has been the inaugural chair of cancer
nursing at the University of Melbourne.
Krishnasamy has a passion for advocating
for and enhancing the nursing care of
patients, borne of her first job at the
University Hospital of Wales in Cardiff and
continuing to this day in her roles as chair
and education lead for cancer nursing at the
Victorian Comprehensive Cancer Centre.
Previous roles as president of the Clinical
Oncology Society of Australia, president of
the Cancer Nurses Society of Australia, and
a lead member of the Policy and Advocacy
Committee of the International Society
of Nurses in Cancer Care, cement her
belief that oncology nurses are pivotal in
cancer care.
Krishnasamy wants nurses to take active
roles in research, something that wasn’t on
her radar as a young nurse.
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“I always joke with students and say, ‘The
only thing I remember about research from
my training days was that it was probably
one of the last lectures we had as student
nurses. This lady came in and she had a
hole in her stocking – that’s all I remember
about the research session’,” she laughed.
“But then, you’re moving into practice
very quickly, thinking, ‘Actually, I just don’t
know why I’m doing this stuff in the way
I’m doing it’.”
This led Krishnasamy to complete a
master’s degree alongside her clinical
practice and then a PhD. Now in
Melbourne, her focus is education and
improvements to the nursing profession.
Krishnasamy spoke with Campus Review
about nurses in research, oncology
education and her work at the University
of Melbourne.
CR: You’ve been the chair of cancer nursing
since 2016. This was a completely new role.
How was the role conceived, and how has it
developed over the last three years?
MK: The position at the University of
Melbourne came during the conversation
about the opening of the Victorian
Comprehensive Cancer Centre, which is an
alliance of 10 organisations in Victoria, which
has seven clinical partners, the University of
Melbourne, and two research institutes.
At that time, there was very strong
leadership around cancer science, cancer
lab research and clinical care. But there
wasn’t leadership for cancer nursing. So, Jim
Bishop, who was then the executive director
of the Victorian Comprehensive Cancer
Centre, bravely put forward the notion of
having a chair in cancer nursing.
So that’s where they all came from, and it
really has been three years of rapid growth
Tell us a bit about the research you’re
undertaking.
There are a couple of different arms.
This is one of the delights – and one of
the challenges – of wearing many hats.
What I’m able to do through the University
of Melbourne is invest in thinking about
problems that are of relevance to cancer
nurses every day, problems that are relevant
around the quality and safety of delivery
of care, but also around organisational
efficiencies and system-level thinking. So,
the role at the university allows me that
breadth of thinking and the ability to develop
research protocols.
But then, beautifully, the VCCC role
allows me to network out to nurses across
the seven partners and say, “We’ve got
these projects we’ve developed. Who
would like to be involved? Who would like
to partner with us?”
And so, the research roles have two great
outcomes. One, they generate evidence
that is relevant for nurses, and for nursing
interactions with patients and family
members in the system.
And two, it serves as an opportunity to
build a search capability among nurses,
which, traditionally, our training has not
done. We’re quite research naive. There are
few of us who have doctoral or postdoctoral
studies, so this role is fantastic. It really allows
me to go out and say to nurses, “I’ve got a
network and infrastructure that allows you
to become engaged in clinically relevant
questions that perhaps you couldn’t do if
you were on your own.”
I believe one of the areas you look at is
understanding how you integrate support
into day-to-day care for people with cancer.
We have a program that looks at what
the supportive care needs are, whether
the needs are physical, emotional,
informational, psychological or financial –
the things we know people need to help
them cope with a diagnosis of cancer and
get through the demands of treatment.
So there’s a program of work that looks
at that, with women with metastatic