Dr Kylie Vuong

Tell us a bit about yourself.

I’m Dr Kylie Vuong and I’ve been a GP for 10 years. I work clinically in Sydney and I’m interested in strengthening capabilities of general practice in cancer care.

Why did you apply for a general practice research grant?

I’m an academic GP at the University of New South Wales Sydney. The grant provided me with an opportunity to build on a new idea. Applying for an RACGP research grant was a friendly process.

Tell us about your research, the problem you sought to address, the process for addressing this issue and the outcome.

The grant funded work on melanoma prevention. A risk-stratified approach to melanoma prevention is recommended; however, physicians rely on traditional methods of melanoma risk assessment involving the integration of patient findings using both intuition and analytical processes. Melanoma risk-prediction models have been published but not routinely used in clinical settings. We had two main research aims:

  1. To understand how GPs conceptualised melanoma risk assessment and management
  2. To assess the agreement between unassisted clinician- and model-generated melanoma risk predictions

We found melanoma risk and its management was a linear process, starting with opportunistic patient selection as the entry point. We uncovered poor agreement between clinician- and model-generated melanoma risk predictions. More needs to be done to support general practices in the delivery of evidence-based melanoma prevention.

Our team presented the work at GP20, and you can find about more about it through the GP20 Delegate Connect platform:

  • Vuong K, Anandasivam B, McGeechan K, Price K, McLean K, Tracy M, Hall J, Knight A, Tam M. Agreement between clinician- and model-generated melanoma risk. Paper presented at RACGP GP20. Online, 16–29 November 2020. Available at GP20 Delegate Connect
  • Anandasivam B, Tam M, McGeechan K, Price K, McLean K, Tracy M, Hall J, Knight A, Vuong K. Melanoma risk assessment and its clinical application among Australian general practitioners: A qualitative study. Paper presented at RACGP GP20, Online, 16–29 November 2020. Available at GP20 Delegate Connect

Could you provide some words of encouragement to GPs considering applying for a research grant? What did you get out of it? And what are you currently working on?

One project has led to another. We’re now working on strategies to support practices in the delivery of cancer prevention. It’s been fabulous. All keen GP researchers should have a go at applying. I’m happy to talk to anyone who’s considering an application. Please reach out- kylie.vuong@unsw.edu.au.

Dr Kylie Vuong