Celebrations, team reflections and looking to the future of BSIO
As we are approaching the end of another challenging year, we wanted to pause, reflect and express gratitude for the BSIO achievements throughout 2021. On behalf of the executive committee, we wanted to say ‘thank you’ first and foremost to our BSIO members and supporters, as well as everyone who has attended our events and felt part of our community of Integrative Medicine professionals.
The beginning of 2021 brought a true blossoming of the BSIO as a multidisciplinary community of Integrative Medicine practitioners, including our patient advocate, Robin Daly, who is the key founding member of BSIO. Within our newly formed and enthusiastic executive committee, we have been honoured to be elected as Co-Chairs of the committee. What followed was an intense period of co-design and co-creation which led to our refreshed vision and purpose – to enable evidence-based, comprehensive, integrative healthcare to become accessible to anyone affected by cancer in the UK.
Our vision is underpinned by our values which include healthcare integration, interdisciplinary collaboration, evidence-based cancer care and innovation. The BSIO activities throughout 2021 which are outlined below, demonstrate the importance of our values, guiding everything that we do.
Refreshed website with clear and transparent communication of our purpose and goals, membership benefits and all value-adding activities for our members - integration
Established the Society for Integrative Oncology (SIO) - BSIO collaboration which offers our members enhanced access to the SIO activities, guidelines and specialist interest groups – interdisciplinary collaboration
Access to webinars, social media forums, blogs and our BSIO newsletters for our members - innovation
The successful delivery of the inaugural Integrative Oncology UK 2021 conference, which brought together the clinical and integrative oncology practitioner community to discuss practice guidelines, integration challenges, opportunities and future collaborations - evidence based cancer care
The successful completion of 3 webinars, led by our executive committee members and integrative medicine practitioners, with excellent feedback from members - innovation
Recruitment of our BSIO Council with diverse membership from fields of oncology, oncology pharmacy and nursing and the charitable sector, activities of which will serve our purpose and will start as early as January 2022 (we are also developing a patient engagement group) – integration
Supported other integrative oncology events nationally and internationally, with presentations, posters, abstracts and workshops, including Society for Integrative Oncology 2021, European Congress for Integrative Oncology 2021 and Yes to Life Nutrition and Cancer and Bridging the Gap all in 2021 – interdisciplinary collaboration
As we are closing on 2021, we would like to express our sincere commitment to our vision and goals, by continuing to be an externally facing organisation, partnering with other equally open-minded organisations, and working together towards our common goal of integration in oncology care.
We will continue to advocate for Integrative Medicine approaches in mainstream care, through the opening of our resources to more members and through educating the UK clinicians in the NHS and private sector. We will do this through our BSIO website resources, including our webinars, blogs, newsletter and through access to the SIO resources. Our collective knowledge and expertise will be shared with other society education events, including the Yes to Life Horizon course for those interested in integrative oncology and the College of Medicine annual training event. Our regular member surveys will ensure that we are staying focused and on the right track to achieve our vision.
One of our ambitions is to promote the systematic and collective research on Integrative Oncology, which we will promote through our Council activities and through linking our national and international networks together. This exciting networking aspect of our work will also lead to the formation of a clinical guideline group in 2022, followed by the publication of practice guidelines for Integrative Oncology in 2023. The development and endorsement of clinical guidelines by the BSIO and SIO will empower our clinicians to incorporate aspects of Integrative Oncology into their multidisciplinary team discussions.
Finally, we are very excited to share with you that we will be moving ahead with the IOUK 2022 virtual conference on the 14th of May 2022, with a refreshed agenda and a new virtual platform look. We are hoping to see you there, please check our website in January 2022 for more information and how to book early.
Until then, we wish you a very Happy Christmas and a Happy and Healthy 2022!
The Co-Chairs of BSIO and on behalf of the Executive Committee,
Dr Penny Kechagioglou and Dr Nina Fuller-Shavel