Two therapeutic radiographers at Ninewells Hospital Cancer Centre have received prestigious national fellowship awards for allied health professionals (AHPs).
Team leader Fiona Kennedy and advanced practitioner Kelsey Normand were amongst only 18 AHPs in Scotland to be granted the award after completing the NHS Education for Scotland (NES) AHP Career Fellowship programme.
The theme for the programme was COVID recovery and participants delivered individual work-based projects to develop AHP services.
Fiona created a digital prehabilitation package for prostate cancer patients, detailing important information for them to know before coming for their radiotherapy planning scan. She involved patients in the development of the package to tailor the info specific to their needs.
Fiona said, “I am passionate about patient participation and I hope that this resource will reduce the need for patients to come into hospital for repeat scans, which is beneficial as COVID continues to circulate. It also means that patients will have less radiation exposure.”
Kelsey’s project was inspired by the need for training to continue alongside the physical distancing and remote working of the COVID era. She built a virtual resource to support radiography staff who treat cancer patients. This maintained their clinical competencies in 4d-CT scanning without needing to be physically based on CT to update their learning. Kelsey also developed an animation to explain her project.
Kelsey explains, “Although inspired by COVID, I hope my project can be useful in addressing the link between clinical competence and a physical place/piece of equipment, and the limitations that this creates.”
Head of Therapeutic Radiography Gareth Hill said, “We are delighted to have two recipients of this year’s AHP NES Fellowships. Fiona and Kelsey's projects are both very worthy of awards and we know they will help to enhance our service and care to cancer patients.”
Photograph of Fiona Kennedy