Mr Willis was recently awarded the Varian award for achievement for radiation therapists from the Australian Institute of Radiographers (AIR), which he rates as being the “hall of fame” in his field. 

With about 20 years experience in the field, Mr Willis has focused a lot of energy in making patients’ experiences in radiation treatment more tolerable and less stressful.

As the chief radiation therapist at the North West Cancer Centre in Tamworth since 2012, Mr Willis has focused on making a better experience for patients and creating a more welcoming space for Aboriginal patients through video.

“Because we have a large Aboriginal population, it’s really a focus for us, closing that gap,” he said.

“Aboriginal patients have worse outcomes from the same cancers compared to non-Aboriginal patients.”

Through his work, Mr Willis has also served as a director for Beam Kids, an organisation aimed at bettering the experiences of children receiving radiation, while minimising the stress and anxiety they may have around the procedure.

As a radiation therapist, Mr Willis has always gone above and beyond to make the process as easy as possible.

“People have a lot going on when they get a diagnosis of cancer, then they’ve got this mystery treatment and a lot of the time they don’t know much about it and they don’t know what to expect,” he said.

“So making that more tolerable and keeping some normality about the experience, is really important to people.

“Being able to produce movies to explain what was going to happen, that’s been really useful in reducing the anxiety.”

Mr Willis, 41, is one of the youngest recipients of the AIR award.

“I had a lot of people poking fun at me saying ‘so you’re ready to retire now’, because the people who have won it previously have been working for more than 30 years,” he said.

But, Mr Willis told The Leader, he has no plans of  retiring, or leaving Tamworth, in the near future.