Your First Visit

Your medical oncologist has the knowledge and skills to explain your cancer and the treatment options available to you.  The primary job of a medical oncologist is managing cancer. 
 
During the course of your treatment, your medical oncologist needs to correctly diagnose and assess the stage of your cancer, recommend and implement a treatment plan and monitor your progress. To do these things your oncologist needs to use many skills including:

• Advisor: your oncologist will explain your diagnosis, your prognosis and your treatment options to you and your family.
• Physician and carer: your oncologist will not only look after your cancer but also your needs including management of your symptoms. 
• Researcher: your oncologist will keep up to date with the latest treatments and will often be involved in testing them through clinical trials.
• Manager: your oncologist is part of a multidisciplinary team and often is the manager of that team.

Depending on your circumstances, different treatments and combinations of treatments will be discussed with you.  Common treatments include chemotherapy, combined chemotherapy and radiotherapy, immunotherapy, clinical trials, hormone therapy and follow-up care.  You will be given information about your treatment drugs, their effectiveness and side effects.  If you decide to proceed with your treatment plan you will be asked to sign an informed consent.

You are always welcome to bring along a support person, family member or friend to your appointments.

We are very fortunate to have an Advanced Oncology Trainee  in medical oncology, Dr Sabeeh Butt working in our practice.  He is an integral part of our team, seeing patients on a day-to-day basis, and he is directly supervised by your oncologist. Your appointment may include an initial review by Dr Sabeeh, followed by a discussion of your management plan with your oncologist.

What to bring to your first appointment:

Please bring to your appointment your completed patient details form and privacy consent (please see below), Medicare card or DVA card, private health fund details, pension card or health care card, an up to date medication list, and all relevant recent scans and blood tests. 

To make your first appointment a little easier, we ask that you complete the patient details form prior to your appointment. You can give these completed forms to reception staff on arrival for your appointment.