Rate My Professor Janette Vardy

Professor Janette Vardy is Professor of Cancer Medicine in the Concord Clinical School, Faculty of Medicine and Health at the University of Sydney, and a medical oncologist at the Concord Cancer Centre. She graduated with a Bachelor of Medicine (Hons) from the University of Newcastle, completed her residency at Concord Repatriation General Hospital, and undertook specialty training in medical oncology at the Sydney Cancer Centre. From 2003 to 2006, she held a Clinical Research Fellowship at Princess Margaret Hospital in Toronto, Canada, where she also earned her PhD in Clinical Epidemiology under the supervision of Dr. Ian Tannock at the University of Toronto. In 2007, she received a NSW Cancer Institute Fellowship, enabling 70% protected research time alongside clinical duties at Sydney Cancer Centre and Concord Repatriation General Hospital. She is a Fellow of the Royal Australasian College of Physicians (FRACP). Professor Vardy established the Sydney Cancer Survivorship Centre in 2013 and serves as its Director, while co-leading the Survivorship Research Group (SuRG) at the University of Sydney with Dr. Haryana Dhillon. She leads the Survivorship multidisciplinary clinic at Concord Cancer Centre.

Professor Vardy's research focuses on cancer survivorship and supportive care, particularly cognitive function, fatigue, physical activity, lifestyle modifications, and models of multidisciplinary survivorship care in cancer patients and survivors. She has authored over 199 publications, with more than 14,000 citations on Google Scholar. Key works include the International Cognition and Cancer Task Force recommendations to harmonise studies of cognitive function in patients with cancer (2011, 1183 citations), Cancer-related cognitive impairment: an update on state of the art, detection, and management strategies in cancer survivors (2019, 760 citations), and Cancer and cancer-therapy related cognitive dysfunction: an international perspective from the Venice cognitive workshop (2008, 472 citations). She has secured significant NHMRC funding and co-chaired international trials, such as a study on structured exercise reducing colon cancer recurrence risk. Professor Vardy contributed to the Clinical Oncology Society of Australia position statement on cancer survivorship care and has participated in public discussions, including a Sydney Ideas panel on living well with cancer. Her work influences global standards in oncology survivorship research and practice.