Fiona Tisdall Blake is a Physiotherapist and therapist specialising in the management of lymphoedema.

She has extensive experience working in hospitals and private practices both in Australia and the UK. Prior to completing her lymphoedema specialisation and joining Macquarie in 2017, Fiona and her family were living the expat life in Southern China, where she embraced the opportunity to learn Mandarin.

Fiona makes a positive impact on the lives of patients through her work with Macquarie’s ALERT (Australian Lymphoedema Education, Research & Treatment) program.

1. Something you’d like staff to know about
Lymphoedema is a condition that affects the lymphatic system, causing chronic swelling and can often occur after treatment for breast cancer. As October is Breast Cancer Awareness Month, I’d like to remind everyone of the importance of regular self-checking which is really important in early detection of breast cancer. I recently participated in a demonstration of self-checking at the Macquarie University Pink Hope event.

Lymphoedema is a chronic condition that has a huge burden on quality of life. There is a perception that not much can be done about it. We may not be able to fix it, but conservative management is incredibly effective. Well-managed lymphoedema is so much easier to live with and there are schemes to assist in funding compression garments and to assist in accessing treatment. Don’t let anyone you know who has the burden of this condition miss out on good conservative management because they perceive there is nothing that can be done.

2. A Macquarie person you admire
The program leader at ALERT, Dr Louise Koelmeyer. Louise was the person who taught me when I specialised in lymphoedema therapy. She’s so passionate about the importance of providing excellent, evidence-based management to individuals living with lymphoedema. I feel lucky to have stumbled into this area (it was not really planned) and to have found the most rewarding area of physiotherapy in which I have ever worked. This was all sparked by Louise.

3. What you need to do your best work
So much of what we do at the ALERT program is a team effort, I definitely need the administrative team at the clinic. I need my colleagues at the clinic – complex patients definitely benefit from our multidisciplinary approach. I need the ALERT research team as it’s our research that informs my clinical practice every day. I need the education team as it wouldn’t be possible to stand in front of a room full of students without everything they do behind the scenes.

4. The coolest bit of equipment you use in your work
Definitely the ICG infrared camera to map lymphatics (pictured below). Being able to see what is happening to the lymphatics in real time is amazing not just to me, but also to the individual with lymphoedema. They watch as their limb is mapped, and I explain to them what they are seeing and what the images mean. They learn what is happening under their skin.

Our lymphatic system is not widely understood by people. For an individual who has been struggling to understand why their limb swells and why we are asking them to wear challenging compression garments every day seeing what is happening can literally be life changing. It helps us to guide the most effective management and it helps people finally understand what is really happening with their lymphatics. I love the journey they go on during that investigation and the look in their eyes when they see the map I have drawn on their legs during the investigation. It starts to make sense to them.

5. Something people usually ask you when they find out what you do for a living
“What’s that?”. Until there is a problem, no one ever thinks about their lymphatics, so I find very few people even know what lymphoedema is. In the end I usually tell them that I’m a physio, but I specialise in the management of lymphoedema – and then I explain to them what the condition is.

6. Something you’ve read recently that has had an impact on you
Our amazing education team are developing new online teaching modules for head and neck lymphoedema. I will be teaching the face-to-face component of this new course in December and I was reviewing some of the content in the online modules. It’s incredible. It’s interactive, visually engaging and really in depth. I learnt so much just reviewing it. Head and neck Lymphoedema is a current research focus at ALERT, so it’s great to see this course coming together.

7. A favourite photo from your camera roll
I recently spent two weeks sailing around the Cyclades in Greece – a trip planned for 2020 that had been postponed three times due to the pandemic. It was fantastic to finally get there and great to be back sailing in the Mediterranean – the last time I sailed there was in 1998. This was me and one of my friends as we left Kythnos harbour on our last day of sailing as we headed back to Lavrion to return our yacht. Two weeks living on the deck of a yacht in the sunshine was really wonderful after the last few years of lockdowns.

8. Your definition of success
Being effective while still being kind and doing it with humility.

9. What you like about where you live
I live on the Northern Beaches of Sydney. We have actually just knocked down most of our (future) home. It was a boarding house before we bought it and we are rebuilding it. We are temporarily living further up the beaches. It’s a long trek to work, but on the plus side I can see whales go past my living room windows.

10. I’m happiest when…
My three children are happy.