Andrew Miller | University of Wollongong (original) (raw)

I am an Australian trained radiation oncologist, a Clinical Professor of Medicine at the University of Wollongong's Graduate School of Medicine, and an Adjunct Professor of Informatics at the SMART Facility heading the Clinical Informatics Lab and undertaking research in the the Centre for Oncology Informatics, and the Centre for Medical Radiation Physics.

Some of this requires explanation - a radiation oncologist is a medical specialist who deals (almost) exclusively with cancer patients and uses 'radiation' as his treatment modality. I say 'radiation' because the major amount of treatment uses x-rays (or "photons" as we like to call them!), but there is also a decent proportion treated with electrons. I won't labour the difference, you can look it up!

So you are wondering - what I had to do to be a radiation oncologist? I had to go to medical school (5 years), then be an intern (1 year), resident (2.5 years), registrar (5.5 years). So how long have I been at school? Primary (6 years), Secondary (6 years), science degree (3 years), education diploma (1 year), school teaching (7 years) ... then the medicine! Never really left school!

So the journey has been long and varied, starting with secondary science teacher training and 7 years in the country (teaching at Oaklands Central School and Leeton High School). Medical training followed at the then innovative problem-based learning course at Newcastle University, where I got married and started having children (n=6). After completing radiation oncology training at Newcastle and Sydney (RNSH and St George hospitals), in 1997, I uprooted the family and crossed the Tasman Sea and spent 6 years in the green & blue of regional New Zealand where I ended up in the position of Head of Department. Since then I have returned to Australia and settled into an academic practice in the city of Wollongong south of Sydney. Spectacular scenery, cosy living and very good amenities.

It is tempting to think that a lot of time was wasted before getting to the main game, but in fact, all those previous experiences are responsible for getting me here and involved in Informatics. All professionals have a 'flavour', and the education and late medical start are a very distinct 'flavour' in my medical career. Mainly my thinking was not socialised into a medical mould because much of that socialising had been done earlier. So if you are interested in medicine and you have already been through one career - it's not too late, and later on you will be special because of the experience!

My hobby is computing and I am a lover of Open Source software, it is unwise to discuss Windows near me. Linux! that's the go.

I am also a graduate student in the Faculty of Informatics (SISAT), UoW, a Clinical Associate Professor in the Graduate School of Medicine, UoW, and one of two Directors of the Centre for Oncology Informatics, UoW.

My domain expert areas are Medical Informatics and Technical & Conformal Radiotherapy, with sub-site clinical specialty in Prostate Cancer, Head & Neck Cancer.

In the Informatics domain, I am working in areas of
* Argumentation in Clinical Decision Support
* Radiation Oncology Vocabulary definition
* specification and development of a Oncology Ontology
* Business Process Modelling of Oncology Work and Knowledge flow in the setting of clinical trials and routine clinical work
* Clinical Knowledge Markup Language for the annotation of MEDLINE abstracts, clinical trial documents and EPR repositories.

In the past I have undertaken the implementation of IMPAC's MultiAccess (a.k.a. Siemens LANTIS) Oncology Information System, and also undertaken routine clinical reporting from the database in the form of QA checks and Discharge Summaries. This work was the genesis of my Informatics interest. I have also been involved in the integration of Varian's ARIA Oncology Information System in the clinic.
Phone: +61 (0)4 0965 4239

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