A lot can change in 20 years, just ask Southern Highlands oncologist and recent recipient of the OAM, Dr Stephen Della-Fiorentina.
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Dr Della-Fiorentina was announced as a Medal of the Order of Australia for service to oncology as part of the Queen's Birthday Honours List.
A Highland resident since 2001, Dr Della-Fiorentina said he was humbled to be nominated.
"It's wonderful to be recognised," he told the Southern Highland News.
"People have obviously submitted an application on my behalf and they clearly think I'm worthy and I'm honoured to be chosen for an OAM.
"But I think it's validation for the work that myself and all my team have done in bringing cancer care both to the Southern Highlands, Campbelltown and Wollondilly area.
"We built this cancer centre in Campbelltown in 2003 and the original plan was just to make Liverpool [zone] bigger. We said 'look at the population that is in this area, they need a cancer centre.'
"So that recognition that providing care closer to someone's home is important.
"I'm proud of all the people who have helped to achieve that. I'm part of a big team that can achieve all of this for our communities."
After training and working at Westmead Hospital in Western Sydney, Della-Fiorentina began practicing in the Southern Highlands one a day a week in 1999.
That was part of his broader work in the Macarthur region at the turn of the century, which oversaw the creation of the Macarthur Cancer Therapy Centre in 2003.
Dr Della-Fiorentina said the major breakthrough he had witnessed over that time was in how patients receive care.
"Although the population has increased over those 20 years the actual amount of work I'm doing has increased far more than that," he explained.
"A lot of that is because if you provide a good local service people will stay and they won't travel out of the district.
"Before people would head off to Sydney for their cancer care for their radiation, chemotherapy and to see oncologists and surgeons.
"I started in 1999 doing one afternoon a fortnight in my clinic and now I've got two very full days plus now there's another oncologist that comes down another day a week. So there's now work for much more than when we started.
"That's not necessarily just new cases, there's more people being able to have their treatment closer to home which is better for them."
Dr Della-Fiorentina said there were three key people he had to thank for supporting his work over the decades.
"My wife, Professor Amanda Walker, she's been the one with me all this time and Denise Burns who is the nurse manager at Macarthur."
"She and I have put this together at Campbelltown. Joanne Pearson OAM who was the nurse practitioner unit manager at the Southern Highlands Cancer Centre.
"Denise and Jo have been with me for a quarter of a century, they're the ones who have helped me achieve all these things."
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