Yarning with GI Cancer Trials CEO Joanne Cory
As Acting CEO in mid-2024, when this yarn was filmed, Joanne Cory engages in a conversation with Madison Shakespeare about the GI Cancer Institute and the Australasian Gastro-Intestinal Trials Group (AGITG).
At the time of release in March 2025, Joanne Cory now serves as the appointed CEO of GI Cancer Trials (formerly GI Cancer Institute and AGITG).
Informed and inspired by the tenacity, wisdom, and unwavering dedication of Russell Conley, who served as CEO of the GI Cancer Institute for 22 years, Joanne continues to uphold and promote patient-centred strategic approaches across their clinical trials. This yarn illuminates how this organisation is focused on all cancer patients realising self-determined cancer journeys.
For researchers, this yarn emphasises the need for cultural proficiency in clinical trials, highlighting how culturally safe engagement for First Nations cancer patients supports recruitment, retention, and trust-building.
Further yarning with GI Cancer Trials CEO Joanne Cory
This second yarn with Joanne Cory, CEO of GI Cancer Trials, highlights how feedback from the community advisory panel is valued and integral to driving change, ensuring researchers and doctors listen to their patients.
This yarn highlights why the organisation values community consultation. It offers researchers and clinicians rationale for ensuring clinical trial protocols are informed by and responsive to the unique medical, cultural, and socioeconomic experiences of cancer patients and their carer(s).
Yarning to meet Professor Lorraine Chantrill
Building trust with healthcare clinicians is a process that requires time, yet there is often very little time between diagnosis and the start of treatment. Madison Shakespeare yarns with Professor Lorraine Chantrill who at the time of release is the Chair of AGITG and GI Cancer Institute, Senior Staff Specialist Medical Oncologist and Head of Service for Medical Oncology across the Illawarra Shoalhaven Local Health District (ISLHD), and Area Clinical Director of Clinical Trials.
Evidencing a culturally proficient approach in cancer research and clinical practice, this yarn is also beneficial for other researchers and healthcare clinicians.
Yarning about self-determined cancer treatment pathways with Professor Lorraine Chantrill
Developing culturally safe relationships within which First Nations patients can ask questions to navigate their specific cultural and spiritual considerations and concerns is implicit in patient-centred care.
This yarn offers researchers and healthcare clinicians insight on the importance of developing ethical research and clinical practice that is informed by and specific to the needs of First Nations patients and their Community.
Yarning with Professor Lorraine Chantrill about individualised cancer diagnosis and treatment
In this yarn Professor Lorraine Chantrill and Madison Shakespeare consider how individualised cancer treatment can achieve best health and wellbeing outcomes for First Nations patients.
As Professor Chantrill insightfully focuses on patient-centred care, this yarning is a must for current and future health care clinicians.
Yarning to meet Professor Alan Wigg
Madison Shakespeare yarns with the internationally renowned Professor Alan Wigg discussing his professional experience as a gastroenterologist and lead researcher on liver cancer and Australian First Nations Communities.
This yarning offers researchers and health care clinicians insight into how Professor Wigg's experiences have shaped his research and clinical practice around culturally proficient relationships with First Nations patients and their Communities.
Yarning with Professor Alan Wigg about Socrates HCC clinical trial
What is the Socrates HCC clinical trial and why is this clinical trial so important for First Nations patients with liver cancer?
Western cancer treatments are developed based on data from clinical trials. Despite a rise in cancer diagnoses among First Nations patients, researchers and specialists still face challenges in obtaining data specific to First Nations cancer patients due to the underrepresentation of Community in cancer clinical trials.
Madison Shakespeare and Professor Alan Wigg yarn about critical issues impacting First Nations cancer patients that ultimately disadvantage Community facing future cancer diagnoses.
It offers valuable insight for researchers and healthcare clinicians on the importance of designing clinical trials—whether focused on or inclusive of First Nations patients—that ensure culturally specific and responsive engagement and participation for all Indigenous Australians.
Yarning with Professor Alan Wigg about early cancer diagnosis of cancer for First Nations patients
Madison Shakespeare asks Professor Alan Wigg some tough questions about clinical trials because truth-telling about clinical trial approaches is crucial for ensuring transparency with trial participants, their Carers, Kin, and Community.
This yarn provides researchers and healthcare clinicians with valuable insights into the importance of culturally informed clinical trial practices that address both the specific cultural needs of First Nations patients and their cancer care requirements.
Yarning with Aunty Grace about respectful treatment pathways involving Western medicine and Indigenous healing
Patient-centred cancer treatment and care for Indigenous Australians must support their self-determined pursuit of holistic well-being and quality-of-life outcomes, aligned with their cultural and spiritual beliefs and practices.
Aunty Grace Crossley Jerrinja Elder illuminates essential considerations that health care clinicians must not only be aware of but also integrate into their treatment and care protocols.
This yarning is essential for healthcare clinicians and shares Community experiences that emphasise the importance of providing First Nations peoples with healthcare that is informed by, responsive to, and respectful of their specific cultural practices and beliefs.
Yarning with Aunty Grace about the impact of a cancer diagnosis
A cancer diagnosis often brings shock, fear, and disbelief, marking the start of an overwhelming journey filled with tests and treatments. While many non-Indigenous healthcare providers acknowledge the distress caused by cancer, they may not fully grasp how this is experienced by First Nations patients.
For healthcare clinicians, understanding these First Nations patient experiences is essential to providing patient-centred care and developing culturally respectful and competent relationships with First Nations patients, carers, Kin, and Communities.
Yarning with Aunty Grace about self-determined cancer journeys through a special cancer clinic for Indigenous Community
What is cancer and why is there so much cancer in Australian First Nations Communities?
This yarning between Aunty Grace Crossley Jerrinja Elder and Madison Shakespeare speaks on old ways of healthy living, nutrition and exercise and therefore celebrates cultural histories, knowledges and practices of Kin and Community.
Building Doctor–First Nation cancer patient relationships around respectful listening
Madison Shakespeare extensively yarns with Wiradjuri Custodians of Country Eitan Harris and Matilda Harry, both of whom have shared the journey of a grandparent who confronted a cancer diagnosis.
This insightfully informs healthcare clinicians on the importance of culturally proficient clinical practice that involves respectful listening to facilitate timely diagnosis and ensure First Nations patients are afforded best treatment options to realise their self-determined cancer journey.
E-consent: Understanding clinical trial involvement to make an informed decision
Being unwell while trying to manage the logistics of attending a multitude of appointments that may be a considerable distance away from your home, Kin and or Community, is challenging. For First Nations patients this can be particularly overwhelming because you are often required to make critical decisions that may be outside your scope of experience and that take you off (home) Country. If you are offered access to a clinical trial you often have little time to contemplate how this will affect Kin and impact on your role within family.
Madison Shakespeare yarns with Hanifa Abdiraihan about e-consent, a process introduced by GI Cancer Trials to ensure that patients can have these important yarns with their Kin away from the doctor’s consultation room and prior to enrolling in the clinical trial.
This yarn reinforces the need for researchers to ensure that clinical trial protocols, when including First Nations patients, are designed to be culturally proficient.
Sharing your self-determined journey, building relationships and respecting your rights
A cancer diagnosis is confronting, so, hearing from others, who have been on their own cancer journey, can often be very reassuring. Patient stories of resilience, tenacity, bravery and insight are made available on the GI cancer website.
Madison Shakespeare yarns with Hanifa Abdiraihan from the Communication team of the GI Cancer Institute about this practice in contexts of First Nations patients who may wish to share their stories with GI Cancer.
This yarn considers issues specific to Sorry Business and details how patient, Kin and sometimes Community can continue ownership over their personal histories of experience.
These culturally specific practices demonstrate how organisations can build relationships with First Nations peoples by respectfully acknowledging and honouring their sovereign rights over their unique cultural knowledges, practices, and the histories of lived experiences.