Dr Monty Badami is not your usual keynote speaker. He is an anthropologist, an officer in the Australian Army, a coach, celebrant, martial arts instructor and jazz singer. In other words, he has spent his life studying humans from almost every angle: how we fight, how we love, how we lead, how we break, how we recover, and how we keep showing up when things get hard.
In this TED-style talk, Monty will cut through the noise of systems, roles, protocols and professional armour to ask a deceptively simple question: what does it actually mean to stay human in cancer care?
Drawing on anthropology, human performance, leadership science and his experience in the Army, Monty will challenge delegates to look beyond diagnoses, data, workflows and treatment plans, and reconnect with the people at the centre of it all: patients, families, colleagues and themselves.
This will not be a talk full of neat answers or easy inspiration. It will be a provocation. Monty will explore how humans make meaning in the face of fear, how we endure suffering, how we perform under pressure, and how connection can become a radical act inside systems that often reward speed, certainty and emotional distance.
Delegates will be invited to rethink care not just as a clinical act, but as a deeply human one. The talk will remind us that patients are more than cases, clinicians are more than job titles, and kindness is not a soft skill. It is a survival skill.
By the end, delegates will leave energised, unsettled in the best possible way, and curious enough to ask better questions: about their patients, their teams, their systems and themselves. The aim is not to give people all the answers, but to send them back into their work with more courage, more compassion, and a sharper sense of the humanity that sits at the heart of cancer care.