Dr Chris is the Consultant Medical Oncologist in the Oncology Department at Dunedin Hospital. He also spends 1/2 day at Mercy Hospital. He is married to Rachel and they have 3 children aged between 7 and 12. Chris was educated at Waitaki Boys and after graduating from Otago University spent a period at the Royal Marsden a hospital in London specialising in the treatment of cancer. Chris was appointed medical director of the Cancer Society in 2015. Chris's wife used to work for Andrew H.
Being of service to other people is important to him.
Chris provided an extremely detailed description of the issues faced with the research and treatment of cancer.
He provided a figure of 1 in 3 die of cancer. This has overtaken heart disease as the primary killer and lung cancer is the most common. It is a fact that the coronary care unit at the DHB is getting smaller.
There are 200 types of cancer. The chances of care are also improving. An interesting fact is that we are the 3rd most obese in the world after Mexico and the USA.
There are new development/frontiers and new drugs some of which are extremely expensive and are not funded by Pharmac.
As a side note, he mentioned that he is shouting his wife a conolonal rectal examination for her 50th birthday.
He described a number of new drugs and how they worked.
Which the bE will not try to repeat other than to say you should have been there to hear Chris who was a very relaxed and informative speaker.
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