An Oncologist's Biography - Radiotherapy and its physics - 13/15

My name's Dr Paul Rogers. I'm a clinical oncologist at the Royal Berkshire Hospital in Reading. I've been here now for seven years. I began training in 1984 at St Mary's Hospital Medical School in London. It was a five-year programme and at the end of that I obtained the MBBS exam. I then went into a general medical job and after three years achieved the MRCP, Membership of the Royal College of Physicians. Following that I then went into a specialist registrar role in oncology and after three years obtained the FRCR exam which is the Fellowship of the Royal College of Radiologists. Following that I then did a three-year programme specialising in prostate cancer, urological cancers and chest cancers for my consultant post. The Royal College of Radiologists is a body that has two faculties. There is the Faculty of Radiology which is the diagnostic side of x-rays, using x-rays to diagnose not just cancers but all sorts of conditions. Then there is the Faculty of Clinical Oncology which is involved with the use of x-rays for treating cancers. That is the faculty to which I belong. The college basically has a role in terms of defining and governing the education of trainees. There is an educational programme and a two-part exam that all trainees must sit.