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Knowledge Building at The Christie NHS Foundation Trust The Thomas Baker Fellowship It was such an honour to have been selected as the recipient of the Thomas Baker Fellowship last year, providing welcomed support for my appointment as a Clinical Fellow at The Christie NHS Foundation Trust in Manchester in the United Kingdom (UK). The Thomas Baker Fellowship awards financial support to the value of $AU20,000 to one Fellow toward their return travel and living costs for a period of up to 18 months of overseas experience, allowing a qualified radiologist or radiation oncologist to further their knowledge by studying abroad.
“I was particularly interested in expanding my experience in paediatric oncology. Though I had done most of my radiation oncology training in a centre treating paediatric cases, I felt my volume of handson experience with paediatric patients and pathologies was still limited. ” My post commenced in December 2019, but the preparation process commenced many months prior. I made a site visit in March 2019, spent several days shadowing clinics and observing clinical operations and arranged a face-to-face meeting with the Fellowship supervisor at The Christie to demonstrate my keen interest for the Fellowship post, knowing
The Christie Proton Beam Therapy building on a blue UK morning
that it would be a competitive process. Following a video interview in June 2019, I was offered the position and the process of obtaining the necessary visas, satisfying background checks, obtaining UK medical registration and the logistics of moving across the world would then subsequently take another four to five months. The Fellowship is based in The Christie NHS Foundation Trust—the largest single site cancer centre in Europe and the first UK centre with an NHS funded Proton Beam Therapy (PBT) centre. It is a part clinical, part research Fellowship working in the PBT centre with four-month rotations through the following subsites: sarcoma, head and neck tumours, paediatric body and central nervous system tumours, and adult central nervous system tumours. As more indications are added to the UK’s Proton Beam Therapy indications list, this may expand in the future. These tumour subsites aligned well with my personal subspecialty interest areas, and I was particularly interested in
expanding my experience in paediatric oncology. Though I had done most of my radiation oncology training in a centre treating paediatric cases, I felt my volume of hands-on experience with paediatric patients and pathologies was still limited. The majority of paediatric tumour cases across the UK is referred to The Christie PBT centre which sees, on average, 15 new children of less than 17 years old per month. My experience with paediatric patients very quickly increased by the sheer volume of patients I was seeing along their treatment pathway from clinic to discussion of their case in paediatric MDTs, developing and assessing their radiotherapy plans, and being involved in surveillance through follow up reviews. Adapting to a new workplace, within a new healthcare system took some adjustment but in itself was an opportunity to learn of the different ways daily work processes and structures could be run. continued over... Volume 16 No 4 I September 2020
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