Professor Lizbeth Kenny AO

Senior Radiation Oncologist, Radiation Oncology, Cancer Care Services, RBWH

Professor Lizbeth Kenny qualified in medicine from the University of Queensland in 1980, becoming a specialist in Radiation Oncology in 1987. Her residency training was undertaken at the Royal Brisbane Hospital and specialty training at the Queensland Radium Institute. She returned to the Royal Brisbane and Women’s Hospital in 1997 as a senior staff specialist in radiation oncology. Liz was a regional cancer director from 2005 until January 2020, leading CIRCS as a statewide service improvement team. Liz is the clinical lead for proton therapy in Queensland.

Liz is a strong advocate for clinician and consumer involvement in service planning and development and advising on the provision of linked integrated care. She is focused on developing robust structures that really default to good care, with established and supported clinical pathways. Liz has a major focus on quality and safety and is a strong advocate for a single digital system enabling clever and meaningful longitudinal data capture and feedback on outcomes that really matter to patients and to the teams that care for them.

Professionally, her main areas of clinical, scientific and research interest are in complex skin cancer, head and neck cancer and breast cancer and she is a principal or co-investigator of several national and international clinical trials. She has published over 130 scientific papers, and has attracted over $85million in infrastructure and research funding. Liz was appointed as a Professor in the School of Medicine, University of Queensland in 2018.

She has advised national and international governments, universities and professional organisations, on cancer care infrastructure and service planning, clinical pathways and the importance of multidisciplinary care. Liz has served on the Board of Cancer Australia and chairs their Staging, Treatment and Recurrence program aimed at harmonising and capturing nation-wide cancer data electronically. Liz represents Queensland on the National Cancer Expert Reference Group and the Health Technology Reference Group and chairs the Queensland New Technology Funding Committee. Liz Co-chaired the MBS review of Radiation Oncology.

Liz has been the Dean of the Faculty of Radiation Oncology, of the Royal Australian and New Zealand College of Radiologists, and has held the Presidencies of the Clinical Oncological Society of Australia, and the Royal Australian and New Zealand College of Radiologists. Currently within the Royal Australian and New Zealand College of Radiologists, Liz is a Councillor of the Faculty of Radiation Oncology and chairs the Artificial Intelligence Working Group. Liz actively supports efforts to create a Faculty of Interventional Radiology and supports the partnership of Radiation Oncology and Interventional Oncology.

In 2017, Liz was made an Officer of the Order of Australia.