‘It doesn’t have to derail everything’: How Anna Gilkison is helping teens with cancer finish school
Anna Gilkison’s unique role is helping Victorian teen cancer patients finish school. Here she busts some myths around the common advice they hear and says a diagnosis “doesn’t have to derail everything”.
A cancer diagnosis during the most crucial years of school “doesn’t have to derail everything”.
This is the message education and vocation consultant Anna Gilkison tells each of her patients and their families upon meeting them for the first time.
Ms Gilkison, who is employed by the Victorian Adolescent and Young Adult Cancer Service, is the only person in the state to hold a role where her key responsibility is to help young cancer patients finish school or find an alternative pathway during and after their treatment.
She describes herself as a “meduspeak to eduspeak translator”, or the middle person who sits within a multi-disciplinary team focused on supporting those aged between 15 to 25 with cancer navigate the right supports while they continue or pause their studies.
“There’s a myth I’m always trying to bust – there is often really well-meaning advice from medical clinicians who say ‘don’t worry about school, just focus on getting better’,” she said.
“While that’s really well meaning, it can be almost detrimental to a young person to have their plans and dreams dismissed.
“I know that’s not what the intention is but being able to negotiate with a young person and their school the right support can be incredibly helpful for them.”
Dozens of patients have been referred to Ms Gilkison, who worked as a teacher for 10 years before taking up the role in 2019, based at the Peter MacCallum Centre.
She then works with that patient’s school to provide their educators with an understanding of the supports that student would need to continue with their studies while receiving their treatment.
“Young people go along to their medical appointment and hear the news they’ve been diagnosed with cancer and one of the first questions they ask is ‘what about school?’,” she said.
“I like to do anything I can to support them, which I think is such a worthy thing to be able to do.”
Some of the methods Ms Gilkison uses to help students stay up-to-date in the classroom while receiving treatment includes online learning, making adjustments to their class timetable and reinforcing that there’s more than one pathway to finishing school.
“Not everybody needs to follow the mould of going through their VCE, and I think the recent changes and the VCE Vocational Major model has helped a lot of patients,” she said.
“I always say, I like to make a plan A and then a plan B, C, D, E, F and G.”
Ms Gilkison said the most rewarding part of her job was seeing young people finish their VCE – even if that’s unscored – and attending their graduation with their friends and cohort.
“It’s hearing from people sometimes years later who say, ‘oh, Anna, I just wanted to ring you and let you know that I’ve just been accepted into my nursing course and I I thought of you’ … it’s really nice,” she said.
“And (another) heartwarming thing is empowering staff within schools to do their best to support these young people.”
Swinburne University student Maisie, 19, was one of Ms Gilkison’s patients after she was diagnosed with cancer at age 16.
“Anna communicated with my school to get plans put in place to help me attend school, do school work, and be able to pass year 11,” she said.
“She also helped me make decisions on whether I wanted to continue VCE that year or put a pause on it until I was better … she gave me lots of options to choose from and really helped me work out what would be best for me to finish school.”
Maisie, who is now studying a degree is media and communications, said it was “super important” young cancer patients had access to people like Ms Gilkison because they are able to access support they may have not otherwise known about.
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Originally published as ‘It doesn’t have to derail everything’: How Anna Gilkison is helping teens with cancer finish school
