Bendigo Hospital runs a busy medical oncology unit and also hosts a branch of the Peter Mac Cancer Centre providing a large radiotherapy service.

Patients are usually only taken on once a tissue diagnosis is established. The exception is cases that are already seeing an oncologist in their rooms for investigation of a suspected malignancy.

Referrals

Day time hours:

During day time hours the Oncology Registrar should be contacted via switchboard.

After hours:

After hours the on-call Oncology doctor should be contacted via switchboard (consultant or fellow) so that the patients management plan can be discussed, this should then be documented in your progress notes for the patient. The patient, with the agreed management plan, will then be referred to the on call medical registrar for the admission to be done. In the morning the medical team will handover these patients to the Oncology team.

Private Patients:

The Oncology Team have made it clear that they are available for consultation on any of their patients at any time and they should be called if there is a need.

NOTE: on Friday evenings to Monday mornings the private oncologist shares an on-call roster for STJOGH patients, please adhere to contacting the on-call person, this allows them to have a break away from work.

Patients who have had all their care provided by Peter Mac in Melbourne should be discussed directly with the Peter Mac team. If admission is then warranted, there are usually no beds and it is routine for the local oncologists to support these patients as an inpatient in Bendigo, until a bed becomes available or the patient is able to be discharged. In this case you then need to discuss with the local Oncology team with the agreed plan from Peter Mac documented in your notes.

Special Patients:

Occasionally a patient might be on a clinical trial. On these occasions the home unit should be contacted ASAP (be it Bendigo Hospital or elsewhere) as unique issues, protocols and paperwork might be relevant to that patient.