CANCERTALK – Details, episodes & analysis

Dr Sarah Partridge is a Clinical Oncologist specialising in head and neck cancers. She also has an abiding interest in mind-body therapies which has led her to train in Clinical Hypnosis. She finds this therapy to be an enormous resource as an alternative or adjunct to conventional methods of managing pain, stress, phobic reactions and more. She has already demonstrated its capacity to save healthcare costs in meaningful ways, and with her clinical experience backed up by all the evidence for its efficacy, Dr Partridge is in no doubt that Clinical Hypnosis has an important role to play in oncology.

Dr Deepak Ravindran is a Consultant in Pain Medicine and an Honorary Professor at Teesside University, with 20 years' experience playing leading roles in the NHS. He is pioneering fresh non-drug approaches to pain management that, alongside traditional methods such as drugs, surgery or ablation, espouse a range of complementary and lifestyle modalities that have been shown to be effective. Dr Ravindran highlights flawed thinking in regard to the nature of pain and the overpowering fear factors around pain as obstacles to a different style of management in which the provision of a safe space allows pain to subside naturally.

• Website: https://deepakravindran.co.uk/
• Book: https://deepakravindran.co.uk/book/

Passionate about oncology and about the power of integration, Konstantina Stylianou returned to Cyprus from her studies and experience overseas, and has quickly and significantly affected the culture of the hospital where she works, to embrace a more integrative approach.

Dr Lucy Gossage is an NHS Oncologist, but also a highly respected sportswoman, with a trail of prestigious achievements. She has come to appreciate the significant benefits of exercise for those with cancer, particularly when undergoing treatment. Besides encouraging her own patients to engage, she is involved in charity work to bring the good news of the benefits of exercise to many more people with cancer across the UK.

The remarkable success that Gilly Bertram achieved in recovering fully from a life-threatening astrocytoma - through the judicious use of nutritional therapy and other lifestyle approaches alongside her conventional care - led her to train in nutritional therapy and to focus her work on supporting others with cancer. Gilly discusses the role of integrative approaches in relation to conventional care with CANCERTALK hosts Dr Penny Kechagioglou and Robin Daly.

With the spiralling number of people affected by chronic conditions resulting from lifestyle, Health Coaching is becoming an increasingly vital element of Healthcare. Prescribing lifestyle change is simple - adoption of those changes is quite another matter, and specialised support is absolutely essential for most patients.

Izabella Natrins, CEO of UKI Health Coaching Association, talks to podcast hosts Senior Oncologist Penny Kehagioglou and Robin Daly about the work of the Association, which aims to embed health coaching firmly within UK healthcare.

Dr Victor Barley was a Consultant Oncologist and former Lead Clinician of Avon, Somerset and Wiltshire Cancer Services Network. Over a long career he  developed a passion for integration which had its roots in his early experience of the gaps in care within the impersonal, mechanistic model of healthcare that prevailed at that time. Now retired, Dr Barley continues to look for ways to improve the experience of oncology patients by pushing for more patent-led, patient-centric cancer care in his role as Trustee of Penny Brohn UK.

Dr Robin Youngson trained as an anaesthesiologist in the UK and worked for more than twenty years in New Zealand, becoming an advisor to the NZ government and the World Health Organization on patient safety and strategies for putting people at the centre of healthcare. His passion is re-humanising healthcare and strengthening caring and compassion, and this led him to found the international HEARTS in HEALTHCARE movement, and to write Time to Care, eventually prompting him to leave mainstream healthcare altogether to pursue a relatively new technique which he finds brings rapid help to patients with long-term conditions, in a way that's not currently possible through conventional medicine.

Chris Lewis is a long-term survivor of cancer who has built a large following on social media through being prepared to 'tell it the way he sees it' about the state of cancer care in the UK and worldwide. He is openly critical of both the NHS and other key players in cancer care when it comes to listening to the needs of patients and building care that meets those needs. In this episode, Chris takes the opportunity to discuss the changes he wants to see with podcast hosts Senior Oncologist Dr Penny Kechagioglou and patient advocate Robin Daly.

Professor P G Roy is a highly experienced breast cancer surgeon who considers it extremely important to harness the intention of her patients, and to encourage them to engage in lifestyle interventions that can have a significant impact on their outcomes. While she is realistic about the prospects of the introduction of new lifestyle medicine services into our cash-strapped NHS, she finds that within normal appointments, she is able to effectively signpost to local, affordable resources.