Speaker Details

Professor Dorothy Keefe

Professor Keefe is Professor of Cancer Medicine at the University of Adelaide, and a Senior Medical Oncologist at Royal Adelaide Hospital Cancer Centre. She is a Past-President of the Multinational Association of Supportive Care in Cancer (MASCC).

Dorothy Keefe graduated in Medicine from the University of London in 1986, migrated to Australia in 1988,  and became a Fellow of the Royal Australasian College of Physicians (FRACP) in 1996. She received her Doctorate of Medicine from the University of Adelaide in 1999, for a thesis entitled ‘The effect of cytotoxic chemotherapy on the mucosa of the small intestine’.

Professor Keefe’s research interest is in toxicity of cancer treatment, particularly gastrointestinal mucositis and how it links to other toxicities. She has developed a series of animal models for the study of chemotherapy-, radiotherapy- and small molecule TKI-induced gut damage, in which can be studied the efficacy of new agents in prevention and treatment. She has authored over 150 peer-reviewed publications in this area.

Her leadership roles have included several years as Clinical Director of RAH Cancer Centre, and then as Director of the South Australian Cancer Service. She has International leadership experience as a Board member and then President of MASCC, and during her presidency was very active in developing links throughout Asia in Supportive Care in Cancer, culminating in hosting the MASCC Annual Scientific Meeting in Adelaide in June 2016.

In the 2013 Queen’s Birthday Honours, Professor Keefe received the Public Service Medal for “outstanding service in the areas of Public Health, Medical Research and Oncology”. And in 2014 she received the MASCC Distinguished Service Award for “longstanding, devoted and exemplary service to MASCC”.

She has completed a Master’s of Science (MSc) in Medical Leadership at Birkbeck College, University of London and her thesis was titled “Using Clinical Leadership to Drive Success in Making the ‘Case for Change’ for Healthcare Reform: A Case Study from the South Australian Transforming Health Program”. For the past three years she was the Clinical Ambassador for Transforming Health in South Australia.

Professor Keefe has recently joined Entrinsic Health Solutions as Chief Medical Officer (Oncology) on a part-time basis.