18/03/2025
Last night Epworth Freemasons Breast Clinic ran a GP educational dinner, to raise awareness about the clinic and services they provide. This was hosted by the wonderful team of breast clinic doctors including Dr Lidia Coha, Dr Maria Rodopoulos, Dr Indira Dhupelia and Dr Angela Catanzariti and lead radiologist (in the middle) Dr Jenny Ellis.
The Freemasons Breast clinic is a unique private clinic in Melbourne where patients are seen by a breast clinic doctor (no referral needed), have breast imaging and are given the results a few hours later. If there is an issue needing to be addressed, the patient will be seen by a breast surgeon within 24 hours. This clinic was established around 1986 by A/Prof John Collins (my senior colleague, pictured in the 3rd photo) and Mr Ian Russell in a time when mammography imaging was improving and prior to government funded Breastscreen in 1991. The clinic provides a personalised screening service and also is usually able to see symptomatic patients within a day or 2, very useful when imaging appointments are hard to get.
It was a fun and informal evening. I gave a talk discussing how GPs might manage screening after patients receive Breastscreen Victoria’s new breast density notifications. This was followed by a Q and A session with my surgical and radiology colleagues (Dr Navin Rudolph, Dr Su Wen Loh and Dr Jenny Ellis) - there were a couple of curly questions! The second part of the evening were small group sessions where the specialists and breast clinic GPs Dr Angela Cantanzariti and Dr Indira Dhupelia spoke with the GP attendees on a variety of subjects. The feedback was great and hopefully the evening was useful for the attendees.
