The Beacon Centre - Oncology

Yesterday, I spend the day at the Beacon Centre at Musgrove Park Hospital, which specialises in Oncology. As they recently won the International Quality Improvement Award in May 2012, I felt very privileged to be spending a day there. I started my day in a gynae-oncology MDT where I saw a variety of care teams discuss the latest changes to the patients’ conditions. This was supported by CT scans (which I really enjoyed looking at) showing progression of tumours and cysts etc. It was interesting to see the number of different specialties in the MDT, including a radiologist, a pathologist, a gynaecologist and both a medical and a clinical oncologist, which showed the importance of teamwork. I then spent the rest of the morning on the ward, shadowing 2 junior doctors. The patients, whilst it was an oncology ward, were mainly all suffering from other diseases as well as cancer, and many had palliative care programmes. This taught me the importance of reducing adverse symptoms to make patients more comfortable, rather than always trying to cure diseases. After this, I went to radiology where I saw the in depth planning systems required for radiotherapy, including CT scans and the colourful mapping of them. This, along with specifically angling the rays and being able to shape them using lead ‘fingers’ helped to reduce irradiating healthy tissue that could lead to unwanted side-effects. I also learnt how they use small tattoos on the patient to ensure that their numerous radiotherapy treatments (5 a week for 7.5 weeks in some cases) all go in the same place, and how increasing the number of rays used decreased side-effects by reducing dose except to where the rays met. I then went into the room where the radiotherapy occurs (luckily no-one was in there!) and saw the machine used to create the high-energy beams of photons or electrons used for the radiotherapy, and numerous safety devices to ensure that no-one but the patient receives doses of radiation that, if repeatedly received, could cause damage. In addition, I saw the bench for patients to lie on whilst they receive radiotherapy and it felt very uncomfortable but needed to be hard so that patients could always lie in exactly the same position.  Overall, I felt I learnt a lot and it was a worthwhile and interesting day.