Alex Broom
Alex Broom is Professor of Sociology and Co-Director of the Practical Justice Initiative at The University of New South Wales (UNSW), Sydney. He is recognised as an international leader in the sociology of health and illness. He has worked extensively in cancer and palliative care across contexts and cultures. He has published over 240 publications including 14 books, and his recent books include Dying: A Social Perspective on the End of Life (Routledge, 2015), Bodies and Suffering: Emotions and Relations of Care (Routledge 2017, with Ana Dragojlovic), and, Survivorship: A Sociology of Cancer in Everyday Life (Routledge, forthcoming). The substantive focus of his recent critical sociological work has been on empirically mapping and theorising the lived experience of cancer and the end of life from patient, family and clinician perspectives, and has featured in journals such as The Sociological Review, Social Science & Medicine, Subjectivity and Critical Public Health. These studies have largely focused on mapping lay experiences of illness, healing and survivorship, and the complexity of cancer care in everyday life (whether curative, supportive or palliative). Working collaboratively with clinical partners he has consistently translated his research into practice-relevant formats, with some recent examples including: guidance for nurses on how to manage conversations about futility, enablers of more timely referral for palliative care by doctors, better models for managing bereavement for families, and strategies for fostering workforce sustainability in oncology in Australia. He an investigator on over AU$8.5 million in competitive research grants, and currently holds Honorary/Visiting Professorial positions at King's College London, The University of Vienna and The University of Queensland.
Abstracts this author is presenting: