Dame Lesley Fallowfield is Professor of Psycho-oncology at Brighton & Sussex Medical School, University of Sussex where she is Director of the Sussex Health Outcomes Research & Education in Cancer (SHORE-C) group. She originally qualified as a nurse at Guy’s Hospital, London but went on to complete a BSc in Experimental Psychology and a DPhil in psycho-physics. The death of a close friend from acute myeloid leukaemia provoked a further change of direction into psycho-oncology.  Her research interests are wide and include the measurement of quality of life in clinical trials of cancer therapy and the development of evidence based educational programmes for training health care professionals in cancer communication skills. She has published over 500 papers, many book chapters and 3 textbooks. She lectures and runs training workshops throughout the world in psychosocial oncology, quality of life assessment and communication skills. She has received numerous prestigious awards for her research and in 2016 she was made a Dame Commander of the British Empire by Queen Elizabeth II for services to psycho-oncology.

HCP’s communication with patients about genomic and genetic testing: how to help

There have been numerous exciting advances over the past decade that have significantly increased our understanding of breast cancer. Insights into the genomics and genetics of disease have led to improved diagnostics and therapeutic interventions with better more targeted systemic treatments. Genetic testing permits the earlier introduction of prevention and risk reducing strategies and results from genomic testing helps ensure that patients receive treatments from which they will gain benefit in terms of reducing the risk of recurrence rather than just unnecessary iatrogenic harm.

Unfortunately many HCPs have difficulty talking with patients and relatives about the various risks and uncertainties associated with testing and test results. This lecture will describe data from two novel evidence-based educational programmes shown to improve knowledge, communication skills and self-confidence of HCPs when discussing 1) gene expression profiling tests with patients (TARGET) and 2) the impact on those involved with mainstreaming of genetic testing (TRUSTING).