Jo McNamara Rad Chat Host (00:00)
Hello everyone and welcome to Rad Chat, founded by me, Jo McNamara.

Naman Julka-Anderson (00:04)
And me, Naman Julka-Anderson. Rad Chat is a forward-thinking global knowledge hub where healthcare professionals can advance their expertise in therapeutic radiography and oncology. Unlike traditional academic resources, we blend real-world experience, expert insights, best practice, and patient perspectives.

Jo McNamara Rad Chat Host (00:21)
We make advanced knowledge engaging and accessible, supporting continuous learning and professional development without compromising patient care or your personal time by providing insights into both technical skills and career development, helping you to progress confidently in your field and shape your professional future.

Naman Julka-Anderson (00:38)
Just to let you know, our episodes may contain sensitive and difficult topics that you might find distressing or triggering. Please consider checking out another episode.

Jo McNamara Rad Chat Host (00:48)
This is episode 205, which is part of the Education and Workforce Development series, where we will be hearing from our guest, Annie Prescott, talking about Brachytherapy Education in Therapeutic Radiography. Hello, Annie. Welcome to Rad Chat.

Annie Prescott (01:02)
Hello.

Jo McNamara Rad Chat Host (01:02)
How are you this evening?

Annie Prescott (01:04)
I'm good, thank you. I'm good, I'm glad to be here.

Jo McNamara Rad Chat Host (01:07)
⁓ good. So Annie I know you and I know each other but for the listeners would you be okay in just introducing yourself and telling us a little bit about you?

Annie Prescott (01:17)
Absolutely, yes. So my name's Annie. I am a therapeutic radiographer. I've been qualified for coming up to two and a half years now and I'm currently working part-time as a therapeutic radiographer at the Rosemere Centre in Preston and I also study part-time for my Masters in Clinical Research at Lancaster University. So I'm doing that through the NIHR INSIGHT Programme at the moment. So I split between three days in clinical practice and two days at university, which is very exciting. Bit of a challenge, but a good one.

Jo McNamara Rad Chat Host (01:46)
And what got you into being a therapeutic radiographer?

Annie Prescott (01:49)
So, in being a therapeutic radiographer to begin with, it was similar to what I imagine a lot of people and what I've heard a lot of people, its reasoning is for coming into therapeutic radiography. So wanting to basically help those around you a little bit, make your corner of the world a little bit better, help those that you're treating. But then what's kept me going through placement and things like that and more as I've gotten into the career is definitely the team aspect of radiotherapy. So...

Being able to work with so many people, so many other healthcare professionals both in the department and outside of it, it's definitely just got that community feel to it as a career. So I've absolutely loved that both since being a student and then in the past two and a half years as a member of staff.

Jo McNamara Rad Chat Host (02:30)
Annie tell us a little bit about your split role then, how did you go about kind of facilitating that because it's not something we typically see in radiotherapy is it?

Annie Prescott (02:40)
Absolutely and especially as a more newly qualified member of staff, splitting your time between academic and clinical is quite unheard of. So the INSIGHT programme was recommended to me by a clinical academic in our department, which we were also very lucky to have as I knew that that's quite a rare role within radiotherapy. So it was recommended to myself and my colleagues by this clinical academic that we have and this opportunity came up for newly qualified professionals specifically to be involved in

either full-time study or part-time study and part-time clinical practice. So it's definitely a good opportunity to be able to, as a newly qualified professional, carry on that development. Obviously, when you've only been in the department for a year, which is how long I've been there once I started this, you're still learning so much and you don't want to necessarily step back from that because you want to carry on learning and carry on that development. But also you're getting sometimes to the point where

you've learnt a lot of things in your department, you're learning your competencies, you're getting into the swing of things and you want to try something new. So it's a good opportunity to combine the two. And I know the NIHR INSIGHT Programme is in its third year of running now and they are still recruiting people to join the programme, both full-time and part-time. So it's an opportunity that is still out there for newly qualified professionals. both students and anyone in their first three years of education, the opportunity is there for them.

It's definitely been really beneficial to me both in having both opportunities and in how they can support one another. So how my academic work supported my clinical practice and then vice versa. It's been a really valuable opportunity.

Naman Julka-Anderson (04:07)
How have, your colleagues found it, you having a split role.

Annie Prescott (04:10)
So it's definitely been a challenge to both individually for me in relation to my colleagues and being part of the team and being part time. So being there for those three days a week and trying to maintain yourself as a part of the team as I'm sure my colleagues think I do overcompensate for by trying to make myself very known when I am in the department. It's been interesting for them I think to get more of a pathway into research in some cases because I've been able to get my colleagues involved in what I'm doing

both through just informal discussions. Me and a colleague of mine who's also involved in the INSIGHT programme have started a journal club in our department. So it's given us the confidence to start these opportunities to then share it with everyone in our department and try and get them involved in little co-production activities, little discussions, taking in things like my survey and being like, what do we all think of this? And it's just like a bit less of a daunting way of getting a bit of a foot in the door with research because everyone knows me in the department.

And it makes it seem a little bit more accessible than the opportunities that you sometimes see advertised where you're like, gosh, I don't know if that's right for me. I don't know if I've got the right things to say. It makes it a little bit more straightforward, which I think has been, I hope, beneficial for everyone.

Naman Julka-Anderson (05:16)
I'm sure it has been beneficial. I think it's that doubt of you're not sure if you are doing the right thing, but it sounds like you are. Have you had any feedback from people about kind of the journal club or things like that and what they've thought about it?

Annie Prescott (05:27)
So yeah, so naturally there's a bit of a challenge in clinical practice with having the time to do things like journal clubs and me and my colleague are both in the INSIGHT programme, we're very conscious of the protected time that we have and the fortunate position we're in to have that time. So some of the feedback has been about trying to make these opportunities accessible. So we've been able to do things like with the journal club, writing up a summary of like what we spoke about, points we took away from it, things for discussion and then sharing that out as well so that if people

then have the chance to look through their emails at the end of a later shift or earlier in the morning when these things aren't running. They have the opportunity to still get involved, see what it's all about and then basically get involved in that way. But it's definitely been some feedback that we've had of just the challenges of being involved in research when our priorities are treating patients in clinical practice, obviously. So definitely a challenge, but one that we're trying to get around where we can.

Jo McNamara Rad Chat Host (06:19)
Yeah, I think that's key, isn't it? Everything is a challenge, absolutely everything, but it's important then to not dismiss trying because I think that's important as well. And actually, for some people, that'll be the thing that keeps them in the job. You know, those small interactions that that kind of get them to think differently about their practice or developments in their practice that ordinarily they wouldn't get to hear about, I think potentially can keep people motivated. And so it is really important.

Annie Prescott (06:27)
Absolutely.

Absolutely.

Absolutely.

Jo McNamara Rad Chat Host (06:49)
I think, when it is challenging but that you still persevere and keep going. ⁓

Annie Prescott (06:54)
Yeah, 100 % I agree

and I think it also helps then the workforce that we portray to students as well that come to our department because then they see the enthusiasm that everyone has for the job more because there's more opportunities available and it's something that I've worked through as well with the study I'm doing at the moment. The idea that if education about specialist areas of radiotherapy is improved then more staff know about it and more staff are aware of opportunities as well through that patient care is improved through education but also

staff retention is improved because people are aware of more pathways within the career, people stay in therapeutic radiography longer because they're just more aware of these opportunities that they might not necessarily know about because sometimes when you are in radiotherapy the pressures are on, like you're so focused on doing your job right like tunnel visioned into doing what you're doing because it is so important to do that.

So it's just trying to find ways where we can improve education about these other areas to improve the opportunities for staff as well.

Jo McNamara Rad Chat Host (07:56)
So Annie, you mentioned a little bit about the research that you're involved in. Tell us a little bit about that.

Annie Prescott (08:01)
So the research that I'm doing at the moment, I've always had quite a strong interest in gynaecological cancer. So this is something that's developed throughout my undergraduate, throughout clinical placements, and then throughout my career so far as a radiographer whilst I was discussing with my dissertation supervisor about my interest in gynaecological cancers, she brought up a really interesting area that I hadn't quite considered before properly, which sounds bizarre, but she

spoke to me about taking the responsibility off the patient. So trying to think of something that I could do where it wasn't trying to develop an intervention for a patient to do. It was trying to develop something that we can do as staff to then improve the care without the patient having to take on another responsibility and something else that they have to then sort out and manage within their care. So from this, did a lot of brainstorming and lot of working around. Makes it sound like a very straightforward process when I say it like this. But

we worked around that and discussed the topic of workforce education. So I know from within my practice, obviously, like I say, I have bit of an interest in gynaecological cancers, outside of that, education is quite limited across the department, as in we treat patients that are going to have brachytherapy. But the open staff knowledge of brachytherapy is quite limited and staff don't feel overly confident in talking to patients about that from my experience. And they've said that to me and it's not a

almost blame culture, it's just that the opportunities haven't been there to learn about it. And it's never come up that there is an opportunity to improve this. And as such, it's just kind of developed into a more lack of confidence thing and then something that is then more directed to brachytherapy teams, which are very well organised and well managed teams that do amazingly at supporting patients whilst they're in brachytherapy. But my thoughts were these patients have treatment with us for

four to six weeks before they reach brachytherapy. So if we could improve the information provision there, then it could have a massive impact on how patients are feeling when they get to brachytherapy. I mean, the brachytherapy radiographers maybe feel less like they're almost fighting by us when it gets to that point where patients are already anxious and distressed about the thought of the treatment. If we could manage it throughout the pathway, it would make their life easier as well, because it would mean that they would be able to support patients in a more

holistic way in a more straightforward way rather than being like, don't worry about your anxious thoughts because this is going to happen and that's going to happen. If we can stop that sooner then it just makes this whole cycle more productive for everybody and more and it improves it for patients as well. Obviously it improves patient experience if that anxiety is reduced throughout.

Jo McNamara Rad Chat Host (10:28)
We see that little bit, don't we, with normal external beam radiotherapy where maybe clinical nurse specialists maybe feel like they don't have the knowledge or the skills to inform patients earlier on in the pathway and say, wait till you get to radiotherapy and then you'll find everything out. But actually, all we know is that by the time they get to radiotherapy, they have imagined all the worst possible scenarios, listened to everyone about maybe all the stereotypes

Annie Prescott (10:44)
Absolutely.

That's it.

Jo McNamara Rad Chat Host (10:58)
that potentially exist around radiotherapy and got themselves even more anxious. So I'd imagine it's quite a similar kind of pathway really.

Annie Prescott (11:00)
That's it.

Yes,

absolutely. I think you're dead right with that and it's that idea of where people are getting their information from as well. So if we're not providing it through the radiotherapy pathway, patients typically don't just go without, they then go to Google, they then go to platforms where patients maybe had treatment 10, 15 years ago and they're telling them about their treatment, which is beneficial and their experiences are very valid, but the actual technology and that side of the treatment is very different now because of the research and advancements that are happening.

So if we're able to confidently provide high standard of up-to-date information, it definitely improves the whole pathway, both for staff and for patients.

Naman Julka-Anderson (11:43)
I think it's also quite important to acknowledge the terminology that gets used about brachy. So like if you do Google it, if you see any patient forums, it's always brutal or bloody or it's not very nice. And I remember as a student, one of the first prostate brachy treatments I watched, the oncologist said to the patient, it's just like playing battleships, like, you're saying that about his skin. So I'm not sure how he's going to take it. I understand like that's what it looks like. And it does look like that.

Annie Prescott (11:53)
Absolutely.

Yeah.

Yeah.

Naman Julka-Anderson (12:09)
but

for a patient that might not be the best representation of what's happening to their perineum.

Annie Prescott (12:13)
Absolutely.

Jo McNamara Rad Chat Host (12:21)
Okay so in terms of kind of the follow-up on the research, what is it that you're exactly doing?

Annie Prescott (12:26)
Yeah.

Okay, so for the actual research I'm doing, so I'm doing this as my master's dissertation. So it's just me that's doing it along with my dissertation supervisor who's giving me some very valuable support. But as a team of one person, I was quite keen on making sure that I could create something that was going to reflect this workforce education for everyone. But obviously I'm only one person. So it's a bit of a tricky challenge. And through this.

We decided to go down the route of doing an online survey. So an online survey that could be shared nationally across social media, which Therapeutic Radiography is getting more more involved in, which is great because it's allowed this platform of sharing between a lot of different professionals. And by using this online survey on a national platform, it's enabled me to get some get a representative sample of

therapeutic radiography across the United Kingdom where I can. So that's my aim is to be able to get responses from everyone or from a representative from a lot of places so that then my results from the survey can then reflect as well as possible what's actually happening in real world clinical practice and how therapeutic radiographers are feeling across real world clinical practice. Within this and within my clinical practice as I say part time, I have had a lot of feedback that

radiographers have been like, I filled in the survey, but I don't really know much about it. So I filled it in, but I haven't really said much. But that in itself has been an answer as well. And that's something I really tried to push is that there wasn't an incorrect answer to my survey or to the study. And it's just trying to gather that baseline and map out the landscape of what education looks like at the minute. And then we can build on that. So it just gives us something to be able to build on to improve the support that our staff are getting to be able to provide this information and support to patients.

Naman Julka-Anderson (14:10)
You're very enthusiastic about this, it's really nice to hear. Sometimes something like this can seem very daunting at the beginning and people are like, my god, there's just too much to do, but actually very positive outlook on, yeah, even if you don't know much, that's still giving an answer and I think it's really pragmatic way to look at research. think I'm definitely guilty of not looking at it that way sometimes.

Annie Prescott (14:11)
Yeah, I'm very keen.

you

Yeah.

Hahaha

Naman Julka-Anderson (14:29)
For the patient education, have you heard from any patients that you've seen face to face use that kind of language as well, like brutal or whatever?

Annie Prescott (14:38)
So I've heard from patients definitely around the language and this is something I've tried to address in my survey is the language we use in practice. So a lot of patients come through to radiotherapy and they talk about brachytherapy and it being referred to as needles for interstitial brachytherapy. So that's the form of brachytherapy where it's placed inside your body and then smaller little catheters, so little plastic tubes are placed further into either your cervix or uterus. And

they're referred to in clinical practice as needles. So when patients come through to radiotherapy, they're like, this brachytherapy doesn't sound very pleasant, very nice, which is a valid experience. And the truth, it isn't a pleasant experience. But the thought of needles then sets off alarm bells in a lot of people's heads because it sounds awful. And it's not reflective of what actually happens in the treatment. So that use of language is definitely creating some issues with the communication with patients because they're then, like Jo was saying earlier,

picturing this thing in their head and building it up to be something that it isn't necessarily. And another discussion I've had with some healthcare professionals is the potential, obviously further down the line, to then improve patient education by having more demonstrations of equipment and things like that to be like, this is what will be used inside. So you're less picturing things like needles and more having a correct, as we were saying earlier, idea of what is going to happen in brachytherapy

and an up-to-date version of what the treatment's gonna be like.

Jo McNamara Rad Chat Host (16:01)
I think as well, one of the things that I certainly have experienced being an educator is that students don't necessarily get experiences throughout different aspects of radiotherapy. You know, I definitely know there will be some students that don't get to see brachytherapy and then they are expected to kind of support patients who are then having brachytherapy. So what do you think, Annie, about creating resources to actually show

what actually happens. I fully appreciate that, you know, from a patient's perspective, it may not necessarily be in their best interest to be videoed having brachytherapy, but do you think creating lots of different types of media potentially to really help with education is beneficial?

Annie Prescott (16:44)
Absolutely and I think there's so many different forms of media created now where it doesn't have to be like live image videos either. There's so many different options out there, so many videos you can find all over the internet for all kinds of things. I think a good example of a resource like this is the resource that there is online for breath-hold patients. So there's a range of resources on that with videos and articles and patient experiences and it really just creates that interactive guide

that's up to date and monitored by healthcare professionals, because I feel like that's really important, is ensuring that patients not only get in the information, but that it's correct and appropriate for them and the treatment that they're having. I think as a workforce and as you say with students not necessarily having the experience before they come through, what I'm very keen to do with the results of the survey is create some resources that are accessible for staff in terms of filling them with the confidence to answer questions and

start that conversation with patients. I did some patient involvement earlier on in this study and a main point that I got from that was that patients aren't sure what to ask on treatment about brachytherapy so they don't ask and if we're not confident to tell them then there's this void where patients aren't asking and we're not saying so it just kind of becomes this grey area. So ideally from this study and ongoing I want to create a resource that almost

just has very basic responses to questions and just has that accessibility to it so that these resources can be left on the LINAC. They're accessible, they don't require time out of clinical practice, they're just there so if a patient's coming through that's going for brachy soon, or you know they're going for brachy at the end of treatment, you're able to start those conversations and you have almost like a frequently asked questions thing where you have then the confidence to provide the responses to that as well.

So it gives you the answers so that the topic seems less daunting and it then kind of takes that, like the uncertainty out of having those conversations, it basically just fills the radiography with confidence and then also helps the patients, like the patients will then feel like they're more able to talk about it. Because such a big part of therapeutic radiography is the fact we see patients every day. So they really develop this relationship with us and then if we start to talk to them about it.

They then feel more confident in talking to us about their worries and concerns and we can alleviate that, we can help their experience and ultimately ensure that they're getting the best treatment that they can without that unnecessary anxiety and distress prior to having it.

Naman Julka-Anderson (19:03)
Talking about kind of daunting conversations, how do you envisage this kind of resource and any of the work around it related to sex and intimacy and the dilators?

Annie Prescott (19:12)
So in terms of that, think I have looked at a lot of literature in terms of psychosexual experiences throughout my undergraduate work and then going into this as well. I think that all of the kind of daunting conversations kind of go hand in hand, whether it's about brachytherapy, whether it's about intimacy whilst on radiotherapy, whether that be external beam or brachytherapy, about dialysis. I think as therapeutic radiographers, we have such a role to play in any of these conversations because

patients really do become comfortable with us over those four to six weeks. And I do think we are best placed to provide that support to patients. Now, obviously patients have dedicated resources at their disposal. They have their clinical nurse specialists, they have review teams in some departments, they have their oncologists, and they're all such valuable roles. But when it comes to conversations that patients may find taboo and difficult to talk about, once they have that familiarity that they're not going to get with any other healthcare professional.

because we're in such a unique position. If we are able to, if we can, obviously this is a big ask and into the future to make, but to embed this within our roles as therapeutic radiographers and recognise the importance we can have in patient care and patient support as well as the technological side of things. Obviously we're a role deliver in radiotherapy treatment, but the role that we can have in also providing that patient care is...

absolutely vital to patients and it is just this area that doesn't come up anywhere else where we see them every day and they develop that relationship and we really need to make the most of that. Obviously that's going to carry on because that's how we deliver treatment so it's just maximising what we can do with that because it's such a valuable time to have with a patient and so important to them as well whilst they're receiving cancer treatment to see the same team of individuals for four to six weeks is

so important.

Jo McNamara Rad Chat Host (20:57)
So Annie, if people are listening to this podcast episode, when are you able to still respond to the questionnaire? Is there a cutoff point?

Annie Prescott (21:04)
So

the cutoff point is the 7th of January so I'm not sure if this will be out before then or out after then. think my survey will be, my survey, my social media will be linked on some of the posts on social media about this episode. So there is more information on my social media if anyone would like to look into it even after the survey is closed there's more information on there.

Also feel free to contact me about it for more information even afterwards out of interest. There's plenty of opportunities to get involved like I say so even just out of interest feel free to get in touch.

Naman Julka-Anderson (21:38)
If we fast forward a couple years Annie, what's the blue sky thinking from this?

Annie Prescott (21:42)
So with doing this as a masters, I was quite keen to choose something that had opportunities to go upwards and outwards with and that I could work from. So the big goal is to improve the education that were offered as therapeutic radiographers and that's accessible to us in clinical practice. And my big thing is things that are going to be effective in clinical practice.

I think it's been really valuable to keep my role in clinical practice to kind of keep my feet on the ground in that respect and make sure that I'm coming up with things that are going to be used by my colleagues and that are going to benefit us all. So I want to be able to improve the education by almost, there's a bit of a lack in radiotherapy of standardisation across, even across the country. So one department does things completely different to another. And I think if we have

a form of education where we're able to provide all radiographers with the same resources. So whether you work in a department with brachytherapy, without brachytherapy, having those resources to be able to improve yourself, to be able to build your confidence, it then opens up more opportunities as well. So it then means that you're able to understand specialist areas more. And this isn't even just limited to brachytherapy, there's plenty of other areas that...

involves specialised radiotherapy such as SABRE, so stereotactic ablative radiotherapy that is delivered in high doses to small tumours. There's stereotactic radio surgery, which is a specialist form of brain treatment. And it's all these different areas that radiographers might not feel as informed about and that we could develop and then be able to develop our workforce and basically improve confidence within us all to then build our role as therapeutic radiographers, as I was saying. So my main goal is to be able to

basically show off how important this role is and the opportunities that we have to be able to improve patient care and patient experiences in what we're doing already. So just maximising the opportunities that we have and supporting radiographers to do that because I get that it's a big ask when clinical practice is so busy.

Naman Julka-Anderson (23:42)
And if you're listening this and you're not inspired to become a therapeutic radiographer, I don't know why you're still here. That was brilliant. Thank you so much, Annie.

Annie Prescott (23:48)
Now you're

Naman Julka-Anderson (23:49)
Just wanted to quickly follow up on what you said around the difference in practice across the country. Just for someone listening who doesn't really know much about brachytherapy why is that? Is it because of different machinery or different processes? What is it?

Annie Prescott (23:53)
Yeah, definitely.

So across the country, brachytherapy is quite a specialist form of treatment, as I say. And it has a relatively, compared to radiotherapy, small cohort of patients. So it isn't feasible necessarily to have a brachytherapy department in every cancer centre across the country because of patients that need the treatment, because of staffing required, like I was saying earlier about the specialised brachytherapy teams. It wouldn't be the best use of our radiographers and the best use of our resources in terms of departments to have that.

So what often happens is patients will have their external beam radiotherapy at one of the many cancer centres across the country and then they will then have their care transferred to a centre that has brachytherapy within their department. So this can cause a bit of a disjunction in, continuity of care. So as patients are going through this pathway, they then, something else I found during my patient involvement was they struggled to know who to ask. So do we ask you guys? ⁓

The first centre, do we ask you guys at the second centre? Should I be asking my oncologist? And it kind of creates this, there are no fault of anyone involved, this just pathway that seems a little bit broken up for patients. And by developing education throughout the pathway, it kind of streamlines this. And if we can improve the education for staff as well, it improves the communication they're able to have with these specialist sites. So you feel more confident to even have conversations with

specialist brachy teams because you feel more like you're going to understand what they tell you back and understand factors that influence patient's care, even factors such as points that patients are referred for, things like that. It just improves the understanding that staff have and means that they can more confidently have these conversations and then learn from them as well, then work more coherently as a team across the pathway, across departments, which is something that we need to do because it isn't feasible to have these specialist services in every

radiotherapy department across the country. It's just not something that's really achievable. So it's just another pathway into improving the patient pathway throughout that as they go across multiple departments and maximising what we can all provide for patients as well.

Jo McNamara Rad Chat Host (26:02)
Really interesting to hear Annie.

In terms of kind of your career and your development, obviously you're going to get your MSc. What's next in terms of keeping that research alive and is it then feasible after potentially you finish this research project that you can then still continue as a clinical academic? Is that something that the department will support you with?

Annie Prescott (26:30)
So through the NIHR INSIGHT Programme it's massively improved my academic skills and my clinical skills but it's also opened my eyes to so many opportunities and it's been something that's so useful for myself personally and also as a member of the department to be able to share with other people. So if I see a resource and I'm like that's not quite right for me but then I'm aware of it and when I speak to someone in practice I can be like this sounds like it's up your street and what you would like to do. So it's just spreading this awareness of other opportunities but for myself

through this pathway that I'm on at the moment, it's definitely something that I would be able to continue, I think, through the NIHR. So the NIHR are very supportive of encouraging anyone involved in research to carry on. So they don't want you to just get your qualification and then leave it. They want you to be able to embed that within your career. So they want it to really be a part of yourself. They really invest in the person, which is really great.

By doing that, it's definitely opened my eyes to opportunities, which is also supported massively. And I think this is like of the utmost importance in my department. So I'm very fortunate to have a really supportive service manager who's really supportive and opportunities and research and also a research based team leader. I think both of which actually were on Rad Chat a couple of weeks ago. So ties in quite well, but it's been so great to have those around me and see the opportunities available and be supported in taking them as well. So.

Knowing that the opportunities are out there is the main part because a lot of people weren't aware of the opportunity that me and my colleague were starting on when we started the INSIGHT programme. So spreading the word about it has definitely helped other people see pathways into research and the focus that the NIHR puts on these other opportunities has opened my eyes to things that I'd be able to do carrying on, whether that be a formal clinical academic role or whether that be something similar to now where I'm part-time clinical, part-time academic

because that time that's brought out is so valuable.

Jo McNamara Rad Chat Host (28:22)
And I would say as well, Annie, that you are lucky to be in the area that you're in because you have a really active research cancer alliance as well who are even developing a formalised strategy and that's the first that's going to be developed in the country. So that in itself must fill you with kind of motivation that this isn't a one-off and that it will be sustainable.

Annie Prescott (28:44)
Absolutely and I'm so fortunate to be in that position and have it so accessible because I know it definitely makes it easier. But I would also say to anyone that's listening to this podcast from outside of the North West, do get in touch with anybody that's involved in that strategy and involved in that network because everyone is so welcoming. Radiotherapy is such a small world and anyone that I have reached out to, however daunting, within my time in my masters and even earlier on in clinical practice.

They're always so keen to help and so keen to hear from people that want to have an interest in research, that want to follow a pathway, that even just have a question about what's happening with different, like you say, the research strategies. So even if you're outside of the region, definitely reach out to anyone that's involved. It's so valuable, especially within, as I say, radiotherapy being such a small world, we're all so keen to help one another, which is really great. And I've realised that throughout my masters.

Jo McNamara Rad Chat Host (29:39)
Brilliant and also as well Annie I can just see you on ESTRO stage in a couple of years kind of presenting this more formally so that will be exciting.

Annie we're coming to the end of the podcast recording we always end with top tips for anyone listening what what kind of key messages would you like to leave them with?

Annie Prescott (30:02)
So one of them I'm going to steal from something that I was told when I was in my third year of uni. I was on an elective placement and I asked somebody that I looked up to on the elective placement if they could give me any advice because I was like, my gosh, you're so good. And they said, don't underestimate the value of your first couple of years as a radiographer because you learn so, so much. think it's so easy to come out of university and be like, I know exactly what I want to do and this is what I'm going to do. And all roads lead to that

but the value of your first five years or so of just learning clinical practice and meeting patients that are going to change your perspective on your practice, on your development as a person. You meet so many people, you have so many experiences and they're so valuable and you can't rush that. You just need to enjoy it and like fully appreciate because it's not going to be forever that you're going to be this newly qualified member of staff that has so many opportunities to learn. So I would say absolutely make the most of that and also just piggybacking off my point before.

Just get in touch with anyone that you see if you're interested in their research, if you're interested in the pathway that they've taken, if you're interested in their career development, what they've done, how they've got to where they are. Just reach out because in my experiences, and you can correct me if I'm wrong if anyone goes to email somebody and gets a negative response, which I'm sure they won't, but

I've never had a bad experience of emailing someone so just get in touch with these people that you're looking up to in research or in clinical practice. It's well worth it and you'll really find it beneficial I think.

Jo McNamara Rad Chat Host (31:29)
That's amazing, Annie. Thank you so much for joining us here on Rad Chat. It's been really interesting and I wish you every success for the research project and your future career. So a huge thank you again to our guest, Annie Prescott, talking about Brachytherapy, Education in Therapeutic Radiography. Thank you for listening to Rad Chat with myself, Jo McNamara and Naman Julka-Anderson. Our next guest feature will be Kevin Sullivan who is actually going to be talking about leadership in his role as a Director of Marketing at Varian.

Thank you very much.

Jo McNamara Rad Chat Host (31:57)
So what do you do now? Well you can use this episode as part of our free continual professional development accredited content which offers flexible learning that fits your busy schedule. Just check out the show notes for the reflective questions, links to literature and resources and link to the completed form to receive your accredited certificate.

Naman Julka-Anderson (32:16)
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Jo McNamara Rad Chat Host (32:26)
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Naman Julka-Anderson (32:49)
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Jo McNamara Rad Chat Host (33:04)
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