"Totally dedicated and caring staff at radiotherapy"

Today I completed 20 days of radiotherapy at Ninewells hospital as treatment for my prostate cancer.

While initially a very frightening experience of being advised of prostate cancer, the total experience at Ninewells was exceptional to the extent that I have subsequently cancelled my private health insurance, as I cannot see how private could match what I experienced at Ninewells. 

This starts at the senior consultants down to the reception radiotherapy team and the radiographers. In all cases I was totally impressed by the professional, dedicated and caring approach displayed by the team, which made it feel like a family of professionals whose mission was to care for cancer patients.

It was a pleasure to be cared for by this team, although not something I would want to go through again, due to the nature of the illness.

I would also want to thank the Maggies team for their support throughout this experience, who also demonstrated extremely high levels of compassion.

On areas for improvement, one minor comment is that the list of appointment times is not version-controlled, so with changes to appointments, generally driven by the patient in many cases can become very confusing due to lack of date or version control on the schedules.

Finally I am shocked at the number of patients who sit in front of the “It is prohibited to smoke here” sign directly outside the entrance to the cancer care section of Ninewells. 

In summary, the cancer care / radiotherapy team at Ninewells made this ugly illness a pleasure to be treated.