Latest / WHAT I'VE LEARNT / What I've Learnt - Dr Chantel Thornton

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What I've Learnt - Dr Chantel Thornton · WHAT I'VE LEARNT

• 0:02
  SPEAKER_01: Well, Dr.
• 0:02
  SPEAKER_01: Chantel Thornton is a specialist breast cancer and oncoplastic surgeon, specializing in the surgical treatment of breast cancer and preventative breast cancer surgery.
• 0:12
  SPEAKER_01: She is passionate about enhancing the patient experience and has a special interest in breast cancer surgery, which maximizes cosmetic results for her patients.
• 0:21
  SPEAKER_01: She is also a strong supporter of immediate breast reconstruction after a mastectomy.
• 0:26
  SPEAKER_01: Chantel leads the Epworth Hospital multidisciplinary breast cancer team.
• 0:30
  SPEAKER_01: She obtained a Bachelor of Medicine and a Bachelor of Surgery with First Class Honours from the University of Tasmania, was awarded eight university prizes and graduated as Ducks of Her Year in 2000.
• 0:41
  SPEAKER_01: Chantel is also keenly involved in medical philanthropy and has served on many boards at national and state level and is a wife and mother to a beautiful baby boy.
• 0:53
  SPEAKER_01: So welcome, Chantel.
• 0:55
  SPEAKER_01: We're thrilled to have you joining us on the What I've Learned podcast and taking time out from your busy schedule to discuss work life, motherhood, and breast cancer awareness.
• 1:06
  SPEAKER_01: So tell us a little bit about you were just chatting to me briefly about how the Zoom world has changed the way that you can access, or should we say, that rural patients can access services for cancer treatment.
• 1:20
  SPEAKER_01: Can you just have a little chat to me about that?
• 1:22
  SPEAKER_01: Because that's really interesting.
• 1:24
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah, so Deb, in in Australia, every patient that has breast cancer should have the opportunity to have their case discussed at a multi-ispany team meeting, which is a meeting whereby the entire team that looks after a patient with breast cancer attends.
• 1:40
  SPEAKER_00: So the breast cancer surgeon, the pathologist, the radiologist, the medical oncologist, the radiation oncologist, the breast care nurses.
• 1:48
  SPEAKER_00: And the case gets discussed, and then the opinions of multiple members of the team are canvassed in order to come up with a plan for the patient.
• 1:56
  SPEAKER_00: And this has been shown internationally to improve survival for patients with breast cancer.
• 2:03
  SPEAKER_00: And so if patients do have breast cancer, they should be sort of demanding that their cases discussed at a multi-speed team meeting because we know that it improves their survival.
• 2:11
  SPEAKER_00: And it's really, I mean, it's up to the surgeon obviously to present the cases, but it's not really up to the surgeon just to make an opinion, and that's the opinion that the patient should stick with.
• 2:20
  SPEAKER_00: It needs to be done in a multidisciplinary environment.
• 2:23
  SPEAKER_00: And so now we have Zoom.
• 2:25
  SPEAKER_00: There is no reason why people that live in regional communities who may not even be treated by a specific multi-SME team cannot have their cases discussed in order to get further opinions, particularly with high-risk patients, for example, young ladies, pregnant ladies, women that have big tumours or women that have unusual tumours, whereby they can get opinions from multiple members of the breast cancer community, anywhere in the world, in fact.
• 2:55
  SPEAKER_00: And that the ability for Zoom to do that really has revolutionized our ability to join several meetings so we don't actually have to be as mobile in terms of driving all over Melbourne, all over the city that they that we live in.
• 3:09
  SPEAKER_00: We can simply just log on and and give a clinical opinion.
• 3:13
  SPEAKER_01: What an extraordinary benefit out of such a difficult time.
• 3:16
  SPEAKER_01: And I think that's really interesting to reflect on.
• 3:19
  SPEAKER_01: Can you talk to me a little bit about?
• 3:20
  SPEAKER_01: And I know that you've spoken extensively about how best to reduce the risks of breast cancer for women.
• 3:28
  SPEAKER_01: And I know that you've you've have talked to this, but it really is worth our listeners hearing just a recount of some of the important things that you see as preventative.
• 3:38
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah, well, mainly it is actually bad luck, and I mean the most important um, I suppose, factor is being female.
• 3:45
  SPEAKER_00: The most, you know, if breast cancer is extremely common and very common in in women, as you know.
• 3:51
  SPEAKER_00: Um, but mostly it's lifestyle factors actually that we can do to impact on our ability to reduce our risk of not only breast cancer, but all cancers and things like heart disease as well.
• 4:03
  SPEAKER_00: Um, so we're talking about things like diet, exercise, alcohol, um, cigarette smoking, so diet um improving our intake of fruit and vegetables, so having uh five servings of vegetables a day and two of fruit.
• 4:17
  SPEAKER_00: Um alcohol, reducing our alcohol intake, importantly, um, to uh less than two standard drinks on no more than three nights of the week or three days of the week.
• 4:28
  SPEAKER_00: And if you can have zero alcohol, that's even better.
• 4:32
  SPEAKER_00: Um, cigarette smoking, don't smoke.
• 4:34
  SPEAKER_00: I mean, it is the best thing you can do for your health by stopping smoking.
• 4:37
  SPEAKER_00: Exercise, exercising 240 minutes a week.
• 4:40
  SPEAKER_00: Um, and of those 240 minutes, 50, 150 of those, sorry, is aerobic type exercise, increasing your heart rate, 90 minutes of that is core, um core and strength and stability work.
• 4:53
  SPEAKER_00: Um so they're they're really the main things and keeping your body mass index in a in a healthy um range from uh 20 to 25, not exposing yourself to exogenous estrogens for a long period of time, so in the post-menopausal period, not for more than five years, um that is the combined hormone replacement therapy, um, avoiding you know um significant amounts of radiation if you can, and I mean that's probably not as relevant in our society, but may have been in you know previous years.
• 5:23
  SPEAKER_00: Um, and then obviously knowing your family history is very important as well to know am I at a higher risk based on my family history or um my ancestry, uh my Ashkenazi Jewish background increases the risk of breast cancer.
• 5:37
  SPEAKER_00: Um, so there are a variety of things that patients need to know, and including their breast density.
• 5:42
  SPEAKER_00: So when they do go for a mammogram, um being aware of how dense their breasts are and how difficult it is for number one, for them to see breast cancer on the mammogram, but also um as an independent risk factor, we know that increased breast density does increase an individual's risk of breast cancer.
• 5:59
  SPEAKER_01: So actually, it's interesting.
• 6:00
  SPEAKER_01: So are things improving?
• 6:02
  SPEAKER_01: Is education getting through one?
• 6:04
  SPEAKER_01: Two, is there actual, for example, I know that um you have a mammogram and then generally they say fine, don't come back and for two years.
• 6:13
  SPEAKER_01: Uh, but there are some people that are sent for ultrasound.
• 6:17
  SPEAKER_01: Is is the uh the mammogram a sufficient first port of call in that regard?
• 6:23
  SPEAKER_01: Because that's what I already know that's what I'm interested in.
• 6:26
  SPEAKER_00: If that good question, and a lot of ladies ask me this question.
• 6:29
  SPEAKER_00: I think from a screening perspective, um, Breast Screen Australia recommends mammography.
• 6:35
  SPEAKER_00: Um, they will take people from uh 40 years on, but they really their target audience is is 50 to 75, and that doesn't mean that your risk of breast cancer reduces over 75, it's just that they don't actively invite you to come.
• 6:48
  SPEAKER_00: And in fact, your risk of breast cancer increases the older you are.
• 6:51
  SPEAKER_00: So if you are independent and you're healthy and you're over 75, then you should attend breast screen.
• 6:57
  SPEAKER_00: I think if you've got a symptom, if you've got a breast lump, a nipple discharge, if you've got pain in the breast, if you've got changes in the contour, size, shape, or text of the breast, you should have what we call diagnostic imaging, which includes a mammogram and an ultrasound.
• 7:11
  SPEAKER_00: If you know you've got dense breasts or you've got um any of the risk factors which might increase your risk, then you should ask for an ultrasound also.
• 7:20
  SPEAKER_01: Just to clarify.
• 7:22
  SPEAKER_00: You'll only get a mammogram if you go to breast screen.
• 7:24
  SPEAKER_01: Yes, that's right.
• 7:25
  SPEAKER_01: So dense breasts, is that big breasts or dense, meaning thick.
• 7:29
  SPEAKER_01: You need to breasts that are that are still dense.
• 7:32
  SPEAKER_01: Exactly.
• 7:32
  SPEAKER_01: Yes.
• 7:33
  SPEAKER_00: But it's got nothing to do with size, it's to do with the number of ducts and lobules that make up the breast.
• 7:38
  SPEAKER_00: So breasts are made of ducts and lobules intervening connective tissue or a supporting stroma, and then fat.
• 7:44
  SPEAKER_00: And the older we are, fat replaces um the ducts and lobules as the ducts and lobules involute after we go through the change of life.
• 7:52
  SPEAKER_00: And uh, if we've had babies, if we've breastfed, and that's why breasts sort of go saggy and south downwards, um, and they become much more see-through, which is a great thing.
• 8:01
  SPEAKER_00: But about a third of ladies who have dense breasts pre-menopause will continue to have dense breast post-menopause, which means that we won't be able to see things very well on their mammogram.
• 8:12
  SPEAKER_00: Um, and so it's not necessarily something you can tell by feeling or by palpation.
• 8:17
  SPEAKER_00: You know, it is something where you often need to look at the imaging to know how dense the breasts are.
• 8:24
  SPEAKER_01: And tell me, are treatments improving?
• 8:26
  SPEAKER_01: Are we making progress?
• 8:29
  SPEAKER_01: If you if we're actually we are.
• 8:31
  SPEAKER_00: I mean, the the survival for ladies with breast cancer is actually very high.
• 8:35
  SPEAKER_00: Of all cancers, um, it's in the order of about 92% of all comers with breast cancer, which makes breast cancer a very rewarding profession because we see our patients for a very long time and we get to know them.
• 8:47
  SPEAKER_00: And you know, there's a lot of hope when someone's diagnosed with breast cancer, although it is often a difficult treatment course.
• 8:53
  SPEAKER_00: We expect and we hope that women will live a very long time like they will with any other chronic disease.
• 8:58
  SPEAKER_00: And so the diagnosis of breast cancer does not have to be, you know, one of fear, uh, if you like, and one of death, um, because the majority of patients that are diagnosed with breast cancer will go on to live a very long and fruitful life.
• 9:13
  SPEAKER_00: I should also add, Deb, that with patients that have very dense breasts, they should be advised to have a mammogram with tomosynthesis.
• 9:20
  SPEAKER_00: So breast screen Australia won't offer tomosynthesis to the patient.
• 9:23
  SPEAKER_00: They'll give the patient a digital mammogram and currently don't offer tomosynthesis unless the patient gets a callback.
• 9:30
  SPEAKER_00: So if you do know that you have dense breasts or you are young and you expect that your breasts might be dense, then you should go to a centre where they provide a 3D type image, which is a mammogram with tomosynthesis.
• 9:40
  SPEAKER_01: That's a very, very important thing for us to know because most people wouldn't know that.
• 9:44
  SPEAKER_01: But it's good because if we're educated and we're aware, then we can actually have a say in the journey that, let's say, if you have to take it, you at least are informed, which is part of what you're doing, which is great.
• 9:58
  SPEAKER_01: Tell me, on a personal level, how do you prepare mentally for seeing and supporting women who are feeling very scared, very vulnerable?
• 10:06
  SPEAKER_01: And how do you help them and how do you manage your own emotions?
• 10:10
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah, look, it can be very difficult.
• 10:12
  SPEAKER_00: Um, I'm very fortunate.
• 10:14
  SPEAKER_00: I have a great team around me.
• 10:15
  SPEAKER_00: So I have um two brilliant breastcare nurses, I work with another reconstructive surgeon, and I have fabulous um oncologists and the like.
• 10:23
  SPEAKER_00: Um, but I think physically and mentally it is important to be very fit, and so I do enjoy going to the gym when it was um, you know, pre-COVID times.
• 10:32
  SPEAKER_00: Um, I love to run, I love to go outside to the parks and walk, I spend quality time with my family and friends.
• 10:39
  SPEAKER_00: Um and I think emotionally it is difficult.
• 10:43
  SPEAKER_00: You've got to make sure that you have a good night's sleep before a big operation, but also before you're telling a patient devastating news that will impact on their life.
• 10:51
  SPEAKER_00: Um, I think it's very important that the doctor is extremely healthy as well.
• 10:55
  SPEAKER_00: Um, and so I'd like to think that, you know, I do what I say and what I request my patients to do by, you know, having a great dive, exercising, getting good quality sleep and connecting with my family and friends because I think it is very important.
• 11:10
  SPEAKER_00: There's, I mean, there's no way that a doctor can't get emotionally involved with the patients, and we are very lucky and we have the most amazing, wonderful, courageous patients.
• 11:18
  SPEAKER_00: Um, but overall, I suppose my job is the surgeon, and my job is to protect the patient and to give them the very best care.
• 11:25
  SPEAKER_00: And so there has to be some level of um, you know, sort of um distancing yourself from the patient to allow yourself to give them the very best care with that, with also giving them empathy as well.
• 11:36
  SPEAKER_00: Because it is really hard times and they need to be treated, you know, like like they're a human being and and like they are someone who, you know, needs to get all of your attention.
• 11:46
  SPEAKER_00: So the patient has to be the most important person to me in that consultation or in that operating theatre.
• 11:53
  SPEAKER_01: Very interesting.
• 11:54
  SPEAKER_01: And also, surgery's always been a male bastion, really, and it's quite quite challenging.
• 11:59
  SPEAKER_01: I actually have a daughter doing medicine, studying medicine.
• 12:01
  SPEAKER_01: So you're an amazing role model for her.
• 12:04
  SPEAKER_01: Congratulations, that's great.
• 12:05
  SPEAKER_01: She's just about OSCI.
• 12:07
  SPEAKER_01: She's second year.
• 12:09
  SPEAKER_01: She's about to sit at the OSCI on Friday.
• 12:11
  SPEAKER_01: So, you know, but that's pretty scary.
• 12:13
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah, it's pretty intense.
• 12:15
  SPEAKER_01: So, yeah, yeah.
• 12:17
  SPEAKER_01: So um, just just on that note, so in terms of surgery has been very much a male bastion and an area where it's hard for women to get through.
• 12:27
  SPEAKER_01: And I know certainly my daughter and all the the women studying medicine at the moment would look to you as a great role model of how you can actually go on that journey and still maintain your and your integrity, but also your sense of being a woman, it's okay, but you still manage.
• 12:42
  SPEAKER_01: So you've carved your way, and that's extraordinary, and I know how difficult that would have been.
• 12:46
  SPEAKER_01: Do you think it's becoming a more accessible career for a woman to be a surgeon?
• 12:51
  SPEAKER_00: What's your what's your Yeah, I certainly do.
• 12:53
  SPEAKER_00: I mean, the College of Surgeons have done a lot of work with women in surgery and how we can encourage women to join, join the surgical profession and become fellows of the Royal Australasian College of Surgeons.
• 13:04
  SPEAKER_00: I mean, overall it is important, and I've always said you've got to maintain your own femininity and your own personality within the realms of what is professionally appropriate.
• 13:13
  SPEAKER_00: Um, because ultimately patients are not all men wearing grey suits and navy ties that are 50 years of age.
• 13:20
  SPEAKER_00: I mean, you know, that's a reality.
• 13:21
  SPEAKER_00: We live in a multicultural society, we are all unique, and we also need to have surgeons and doctors that fit those multicultural and unique elements and that can connect with patients at different levels.
• 13:33
  SPEAKER_00: And so I suppose with breast cancer surgery, there are a lot more female surgeons.
• 13:37
  SPEAKER_00: And I mean, I was particular in choosing breast cancer surgery.
• 13:40
  SPEAKER_00: I trained as a general surgeon in a trauma hospital, and so most of my training had been trauma-style training.
• 13:46
  SPEAKER_00: Um, with very little focus on breast cancer, actually.
• 13:50
  SPEAKER_00: And I sort of thought, well, at the end of my training as a general surgeon, what would I subspecialise in?
• 13:55
  SPEAKER_00: What could I do to make my gender work for me?
• 13:58
  SPEAKER_00: Um, and I thought, well, you know, I'm female, I've got a strong family history of breast cancer.
• 14:03
  SPEAKER_00: If I was a female, I probably want to be treated by a female surgeon, and I'd love to be able to connect with patients, you know, and I'd love to have a whole practice of female patients so I could practice surgery in a way that I felt was different from what anyone else was doing, and particularly what the male surgeons were doing.
• 14:20
  SPEAKER_00: Because surgery doesn't have to be that old school masculine, you know, profession.
• 14:27
  SPEAKER_00: It can be pink and it can be light and it can be extremely professional and academic and intellectual, it can be all of that, and you can have empathy and you can care for your patients, um, and you can involve your patients in the decision making.
• 14:40
  SPEAKER_00: I mean, um, women are empowered, women are knowledgeable, and women are consumers, and they they need to be involved in the decision making for their care, and there's no reason why a female surgeon can't deliver that.
• 14:51
  SPEAKER_00: In saying that, I mean, when I started medicine, 52% of the class were female.
• 14:56
  SPEAKER_00: Um, however, in terms of specialty training, they're significantly underrepresented, and that's in the order of about 15% go on to specialty training.
• 15:04
  SPEAKER_00: Most of the others go on to become, you know, part-time or they do other uh areas of medicine that um aren't a part of the specialty training programs.
• 15:14
  SPEAKER_00: Um and now it's in the order of up to 30% of females, uh surgeons are female now, so the numbers are significantly improving.
• 15:24
  SPEAKER_00: Um, I think the problem is that surgery is all-encompassing, um, and women have a finite time for child um rearing and uh fertility, and it is very hard to have a baby and raise children during the surgical training program because it is a seven-day-a-week 24-hour day profession, and you can't just clock off and say, Well, I'm sorry, I've done an operation, I'm going home to my child now or my family, because if someone bleeds, it's your responsibility.
• 15:55
  SPEAKER_00: So ultimately it is a profession whereby you do need to have a certain level of commitment and you do need to be there for your patients because you're doing, I suppose, one of the most important things can ever happen to a patient.
• 16:09
  SPEAKER_00: You're actually, you know, making a cut on them, you're doing something very, very important to them, and they need to know that you are there if something goes wrong.
• 16:18
  SPEAKER_00: And so often child child rearing will come down to the female, and so it is hard to interrupt training and it is very hard.
• 16:26
  SPEAKER_00: And so I overall I did, you know, make a lot of personal sacrifices in order to become a surgeon.
• 16:32
  SPEAKER_00: I didn't interrupt my training, I went straight through.
• 16:34
  SPEAKER_00: I've been a consultant now for 10 years.
• 16:36
  SPEAKER_00: Um, but I was, I suppose, very fortunate in that I did have a baby this year.
• 16:40
  SPEAKER_00: Um, and that's a wonderful, yeah, wonderful, but may not necessarily have gone to plan um given my advanced um uh um obstetric age, I suppose you'd say, because I'm a geriatric when it comes to obstetrics.
• 16:56
  SPEAKER_00: Um so you know, it this is the decisions that people have to make, and I'm sure that the college are trying to accommodate women, but overall I have to say it is a full-time and a half profession.
• 17:08
  SPEAKER_01: And I think from what I understand and from what I've read, but also just talking to you, clearly you make a point of looking after your own health, giving yourself time.
• 17:17
  SPEAKER_01: You always look gorgeous, I have to say.
• 17:19
  SPEAKER_01: You're extremely, you know, you you're it's not like scrubs today.
• 17:23
  SPEAKER_01: That's all right, you still look gorgeous in your scrubs.
• 17:26
  SPEAKER_01: Um, but my point is that you you have not the, you know, a lot of people and a lot of women feel they have to forfeit their own needs and themselves.
• 17:34
  SPEAKER_01: What you're saying is try and find that work-life balance so that you have time for yourself, which allows you to be effective as a mother, as a surgeon, and it just should apply just like it would with any job.
• 17:47
  SPEAKER_01: But in saying that, I do understand that the challenges are quite massive.
• 17:51
  SPEAKER_01: Um, I've got three children myself, so I understand and I'm not a surgeon, and it's still pretty full on.
• 17:58
  SPEAKER_00: So it's probably harder than being a surgeon having three children I'd have to say dead.
• 18:03
  SPEAKER_01: Let me tell you, I've got one doing year 12 right now, so I'm just three, nearly got three through the door.
• 18:10
  SPEAKER_01: Um, so you know that concept of, and I hate this expression, can women have at all?
• 18:14
  SPEAKER_01: Because I hate that, I'm not really a fan of that expression, but in a sense, why can't we have, as you have clearly outlined, that broad spectrum and and be happy with all of the above?
• 18:27
  SPEAKER_01: Do you think it's doable?
• 18:28
  SPEAKER_01: And do you think, and what are I suppose the main challenges for you in doing that?
• 18:32
  SPEAKER_01: What do you find the most challenging?
• 18:34
  SPEAKER_00: I mean, I think women can have it all, but not at the same time necessarily.
• 18:39
  SPEAKER_00: Um, and I mean, I don't I don't also know if have it all is a hundred percent an appropriate message.
• 18:48
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah.
• 18:49
  SPEAKER_00: Some women don't want to have children, and so that is having it all for them, you know.
• 18:54
  SPEAKER_00: Some women just want to have a career, or some women don't want to have a career and want to stay home and have a career at home with child raising.
• 19:01
  SPEAKER_00: And so, I mean, I think it is possible to do what you want to do.
• 19:06
  SPEAKER_00: The sky is the limit.
• 19:08
  SPEAKER_00: You just have to make it work for you.
• 19:11
  SPEAKER_00: Um, and I guess not be worried by the status quo of people that say, you know, you must have, you must have this, you must have that, you must have ultimately you have to please no one but yourself.
• 19:24
  SPEAKER_00: And I mean, I look a lot at breast cancer and the patients that I see, and a lot of those women make decisions after they've had a diagnose of breast cancer that they probably should have made many years before.
• 19:35
  SPEAKER_00: And I mean, I did talk about diet, exercise, alcohol, and lifestyle, obesity, etc., in things that impact on a woman's um risk of breast cancer.
• 19:43
  SPEAKER_00: But I truly believe that stress and the way you your the way your self-esteem is, um, your self-value, your self-worth, um, what you do for other people, uh, and how you view yourself and how happy you are with yourself impact significantly on your immune system.
• 20:02
  SPEAKER_00: Um, and I think some of those variables will be looked at in the future to see if it is important, particularly in fighting cancer, but also in a diagnosis of cancer.
• 20:14
  SPEAKER_00: And so I think, you know, if having it all means that you're going to be so stressed that you can't enjoy your life, then and you are going to increase the risk of heart disease, of stroke, of um of cancer potentially, then is it really worth it?
• 20:30
  SPEAKER_00: You've got to work out what's important to you.
• 20:32
  SPEAKER_00: Um, it doesn't have to be what society says is important.
• 20:36
  SPEAKER_00: Um, and you need to be happy and you need to be healthy because your immune system is being guided by your happiness and by your health, and that will impact on your ability to fight any cells that might be sort of mutating in your body that might become cancer cells.
• 20:51
  SPEAKER_00: And so, if in my ladies who have diagnosed of cancer, many of them will come back afterwards and say, Oh, you know, I divorced my husband or I changed my job or I changed things in my life chantal that I realized did not make me happy, and it's made me healthier.
• 21:04
  SPEAKER_00: And so I think it's important that women reflect on that and do what is right for you, not what society says is right.
• 21:11
  SPEAKER_01: That is such amazing advice, and so something that I think a lot of women women need to hear because I think we spend a lot of time trying to please and accommodate as a rule.
• 21:21
  SPEAKER_01: I don't know if you've read that book.
• 21:23
  SPEAKER_01: Um, the the the um there's a great book that's come out that talks about this, but but I digress.
• 21:28
  SPEAKER_01: I want to focus more on there's just another few items that I want to talk to you about which are important.
• 21:34
  SPEAKER_01: Um you're clearly extremely successful and very disciplined, I I can observe.
• 21:39
  SPEAKER_01: Um what is something that you're afraid of in terms of do you see yourself, is there any area, and I hate the word failure as well, but I think in some ways we all have to fail to succeed in a strange way.
• 21:50
  SPEAKER_01: We all have to go through that that struggle, that juggle, that challenge.
• 21:55
  SPEAKER_01: What for you has been something that you've really found challenging and the Given you cause to reflect as you've just outlined?
• 22:04
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah, I mean, I think the IT type world, and I mean I say this, I feel like a little bit of an IT dinosaur, but and I mean I'm actually probably not that old, but I feel like I was probably in that area of education where I didn't focus a lot on the IT and computer side of things, and I'm really a little bit of a dinosaur when it comes to that.
• 22:24
  SPEAKER_00: Um, and you know, I'm not great at typing, you know, I was like at school, I'm not gonna type, that's not gonna be my profession.
• 22:30
  SPEAKER_00: I'm not gonna be involved in this computer studies, etc.
• 22:33
  SPEAKER_00: I'm not gonna be doing that, I'm gonna be doing something different.
• 22:35
  SPEAKER_00: So I guess I didn't realise that that was really, no matter what profession you do, you're going to be heavily involved in IT.
• 22:41
  SPEAKER_00: So I'm not great at IT, and it is a weakness of mine.
• 22:45
  SPEAKER_00: And, you know, in the last few years, I've actually changed my practice to a cloud-based practice, so clinic to cloud, which actually has revolutionized my care for my patients such that you know, all of my patients' data is uh accessible to me on my mobile phone 24 hours a day.
• 23:04
  SPEAKER_00: So if any doctor rings me or any patient rings, I can access their data.
• 23:09
  SPEAKER_00: And something like that, taking that up and and actually incorporating that into your business is and your practice is so important.
• 23:17
  SPEAKER_00: And so I guess in a way, I'd like to be able to utilize more um in credible IT systems that not only help me but help provide a better care for my patients.
• 23:29
  SPEAKER_00: So I have great ideas on on how I would like to incorporate them, but I don't know actually how to execute them very well.
• 23:35
  SPEAKER_00: So And it seems to be the future.
• 23:39
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah, exactly.
• 23:40
  SPEAKER_00: And I mean I'd love to get more involved in that area.
• 23:42
  SPEAKER_00: And I mean, I think Clinic to Cloud has certainly saved my life in terms of allowing me to access patient data anywhere, has been able to allow me to enjoy more lifestyle in that I can, you know, go for a walk and know if I get caught about a patient, I can still talk about the patient and know what's going on with the patient.
• 23:58
  SPEAKER_00: I think the second area is motherhood.
• 24:00
  SPEAKER_00: And I mean, I think, you know, I'm reasonably old and it's my first baby, and I'm just navigating my way through.
• 24:06
  SPEAKER_00: Um, and I think it will be challenging.
• 24:09
  SPEAKER_00: I think it's going to be hard for me to know, I guess, um what the role of a mother is, um, you know, because I've had a very strong leadership role for my mum, but she was um a mother that was there 24 hours a day and really made myself and my sister her life.
• 24:25
  SPEAKER_00: And I'm sure that, you know, much of our success is owed to my mother and father on their commitment to us.
• 24:31
  SPEAKER_00: But I don't know necessarily that I would I will be like that as a mother.
• 24:35
  SPEAKER_00: So it's sort of, you know, knowing what to do, really, because I mean, you know, there's no book that comes with them, there's no manual.
• 24:42
  SPEAKER_00: And so I'm just really just winging it, Deb.
• 24:45
  SPEAKER_00: Don't we all babe?
• 24:46
  SPEAKER_01: We all do, let me tell you.
• 24:47
  SPEAKER_01: And I think it's interesting.
• 24:49
  SPEAKER_01: First of all, I would say we all do.
• 24:50
  SPEAKER_01: That's the first thing.
• 24:51
  SPEAKER_01: And the second thing is that it's probably the best thing you ever do, in my opinion.
• 24:56
  SPEAKER_01: You know, the mother would think.
• 24:58
  SPEAKER_01: And yeah, it's the best.
• 24:59
  SPEAKER_01: But also, I think that I mean, like my mother was a working mother.
• 25:03
  SPEAKER_01: I I'm not sure if your mother worked, but um my mother was a magistrate, so she was very full full-time, but but also very present.
• 25:11
  SPEAKER_01: But I think it's interesting to reflect on that.
• 25:14
  SPEAKER_01: And I don't think really, as you say, there's any rule book, but from what you're saying, you're winging it.
• 25:20
  SPEAKER_01: And to be honest, I actually think the the female intuition and your intuition is actually what gets you through at the end of the day.
• 25:27
  SPEAKER_01: That you, you know, if you if you listen, you know, you talk about beat listening to the beat of your own drum, it's sort of that same thing, in my opinion.
• 25:35
  SPEAKER_01: And I think what you you will be from what I've seen, your beautiful videos and little um instance of your baby.
• 25:41
  SPEAKER_01: What's his name?
• 25:42
  SPEAKER_01: Uh it's my surname, Thornton.
• 25:44
  SPEAKER_01: Thornton Felix.
• 25:45
  SPEAKER_01: No, uh uh, it's Thornton Felix is his name.
• 25:48
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah, Thornton Felix.
• 25:50
  SPEAKER_00: His Christian name is my surname.
• 25:51
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah.
• 25:52
  SPEAKER_00: That's beautiful.
• 25:53
  SPEAKER_00: I did want to hyphenate a surname, but my husband said, Oh, look, no, because you know, it's so hard.
• 25:59
  SPEAKER_00: You know, when you're entering a a surname for hyphen, it can be very difficult.
• 26:04
  SPEAKER_00: And I see that every day when I'm trying to enter a hyphen a hyphen surname.
• 26:09
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah, yeah.
• 26:10
  SPEAKER_01: You've got a hyphen too.
• 26:12
  SPEAKER_01: Deborah Blashkin marks, yeah.
• 26:13
  SPEAKER_01: That's so funny.
• 26:14
  SPEAKER_01: But I get it, but I it sounds like um that a beautiful name.
• 26:18
  SPEAKER_01: And and is he, and is your husband, I'm assuming, he's supportive, and you'd need a very supportive husband to do what you're doing.
• 26:25
  SPEAKER_00: Um, and yes, very much, Simon.
• 26:28
  SPEAKER_00: He's a great dad.
• 26:29
  SPEAKER_00: Um, fortunately, I've had him as a nanny, really, um, for daytime uh nanning since COVID um restrictions, but he has gone back to work now, so I have a nanny um caring for him.
• 26:40
  SPEAKER_00: Um and I also have a really great setup in my consulting room.
• 26:43
  SPEAKER_00: So I've got a lovely bedroom suite upstairs where Thornton stays um during the day.
• 26:48
  SPEAKER_00: Uh, and then when I operate, I have a nanny overnight as well, so that I can be fresh for surgery.
• 26:53
  SPEAKER_00: Um, yeah, so I've got a really great setup and very supportive um parents as well that come to care for him one day a week.
• 27:00
  SPEAKER_00: But it is uncharted territory and it is quite scary.
• 27:03
  SPEAKER_00: And, you know, everything else that you do in your life, there is a manual, there is a book, you know, there's someone giving you instructions.
• 27:08
  SPEAKER_00: But, you know, and especially during coronavirus time, you know, there has been none of that.
• 27:13
  SPEAKER_00: Um, and so I do feel for people that have had new babies that don't have family members in particular to help them, there has been no maternal child health nurse visits.
• 27:22
  SPEAKER_00: I mean, it is it is very difficult.
• 27:24
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah, it is a difficult time on so many fronts.
• 27:27
  SPEAKER_01: And just finally, two quick things I'd like to ask you.
• 27:30
  SPEAKER_01: Do you have hope and faith that we will one day eradicate cancer, that it will become not so dominant in our I mean, there are just so many cancers and so many people that we all know suffering.
• 27:43
  SPEAKER_01: What's your hope for the future?
• 27:45
  SPEAKER_00: And um, yeah, look, I mean, I think from a scientific perspective, I mean, I I think, you know, I'm not sure that we'll ever be able to eradicate it because if you think about, you know, cancer and what it is, it is our own cells, you know, replicating uh in um uncontrolled ways, if you like.
• 28:04
  SPEAKER_00: What I do know is that we will get very good at treating it and we all are already fabulous at treating it.
• 28:09
  SPEAKER_00: And if people are diagnosed with cancer, it won't be a death sentence.
• 28:14
  SPEAKER_00: It will be the same as me saying to you, you know, you've got diabetes, you've got arthritis, you've got a chic disease.
• 28:21
  SPEAKER_00: More people in Australia die of heart disease than they do of breast cancer.
• 28:26
  SPEAKER_00: Um, more women die of heart disease than they do of breast cancer.
• 28:28
  SPEAKER_00: And yet when we say to someone, look, you know, you've got high blood pressure, you've got high cholesterol, people don't have anywhere near that emotion as when I say, you know, you've got cancer.
• 28:39
  SPEAKER_00: So what I can say is that as a society, we need to get healthier.
• 28:43
  SPEAKER_00: We are the second largest community in the world.
• 28:45
  SPEAKER_00: We are overweight, we need to move our bodies, we need to reduce our saturated fat, we need to improve our exercise tolerance, we need to practice more mindfulness, and we need to connect with ourselves as beings and encourage um good health among our community.
• 29:02
  SPEAKER_00: And I think that that will help us um in our pursuit against all diseases of the Western world.
• 29:09
  SPEAKER_00: I mean, breast cancer is much more common in um in countries of higher demographic, in women of higher sociodemographic, and so there must be a massive lifestyle element to that.
• 29:21
  SPEAKER_00: Um, but I do think that you know people will live with cancer as a chronic disease and it will not kill them, they'll die of something else.
• 29:29
  SPEAKER_00: And so I think that if women get get a diagnosis of breast cancer, don't be scared.
• 29:34
  SPEAKER_00: It's it's more than likely that you live a very long time.
• 29:36
  SPEAKER_00: It'll be a little bump in the roadmap that you'll be well supported, and it actually might be uh a nidis for you to change many aspects of your life um to be healthier and and um live a longer life.
• 29:50
  SPEAKER_01: Well, thank you, Chantal.
• 29:52
  SPEAKER_01: I've just loved interviewing you.
• 29:54
  SPEAKER_01: You're so inspiring, you're so informative, and um I wish you all the best.
• 30:00
  SPEAKER_01: Thanks so much for listening.
• 30:02
  SPEAKER_01: I hope you've learned as much as I have.
• 30:03
  SPEAKER_01: The show will be coming to you free every month, and a subscription is the best way to ensure you get each episode downloaded straight into your pocket.
• 30:11
  SPEAKER_01: For more stories or for an opportunity to tell your own, head to my website, mindful and publishing.com.
• 30:17
  SPEAKER_01: In the meantime, stay curious, kind, and connected with life dead.