Profile

I live in Southampton with my husband and kids (11 and 8). I work part-time (50% over 3 days) and the rest of time is mostly filled with managing a family. For exercise I bike to work and I go hockey training with my son. I make healthy choices most of the time and my eco-warrier within compulsively recycles and freecycles wherever possible. We have no TV by choice, but I couldn’t live without the internet. I am a Radio 4 junkie. I like going out with the physics girls. I have enjoyed lots of hiking, sports and travel. Recently I have done Go Ape and indoor skydiving. At various times I have lived in France, California (USA) and Washington DC (USA). I volunteer locally when I can squeeze it in as a STEM ambassador, with a Church youth group, and at the kids’ school PTA events.

I work at Southampton Oncology Centre in Southampton General Hospital. Radiotherapy treats cancer by zapping it with radiation to kill the cancer cells. I am involved in planning Head and Neck IMRT treatments, total body irradiation treatments for leukaemia and prostate brachytherapy treatments. I check breast and thorax plans. I attend (operating) theatre for the prostate needle implants.

My department is very flexible (as am I) and so I have to work my hours each month and show up 3 days a week but within that I can usually arrange my hours around the school dropoffs and pickups (shared with my husband). I bike to work and use the locker/shower room provided at the hospital. Unless there is something urgent to do, I will first check my emails and calendar and then check what’s in the checking box in the planning room.

Some of the pieces of work I do take about 30 mins (checking a breast plan) and some 3 days (IMRT head and neck plans). Each patient plan is checked before it is used to treat a patient. I mostly work at computers, looking at CT images (cross sectional x-ray images) but occasionally I get to see real live patients when advising about treatment positioning or in theatre (not the head end…). Most treatments use a linear accelerator (or ‘linac’) which is a large machine which treats cancer with electrons or photons (ionising radiation).

Space is at a premium, so in my office 4 physicists share 3 desks. If I stand close to the window and look up high, I can see sky. We have a mini kitchen along the corridor so I can make cups of tea and warm up my lunch in the microwave.