Wellesbourne doctor in 24-hour cycle to help improve cancer care

Dr James Gill, a GP registrar in Wellesbourne and teaching fellow at the University of Warwick, will be cycling, along with volunteers, the equivalent of 2,000km at the university campus, from Wednesday October 14 to Thursday October 15. The funds raised will go towards purchasing new devices for health professionals to train with, which have realistic feeling breast-like tissue, allowing students to acquire the delicate skills needed to conduct an examination and detect a range of abnormalities such as tumours, cancer related changes and cysts.

Dr Gill said: “By training junior doctors, and medical students, earlier in their careers about recognising the signs of breast cancer, there is the greater opportunity to catch cases sooner and maybe save a patient’s life.”

Currently the firm LimbsandThings has loaned Warwick Medical School one of its models, but Dr Gill plans to raise £10,000 to pay for at least ten more pairs, which can be shared with local GP training schemes, used in public breast cancer workshops and loaned out to groups looking to promote breast cancer awareness.

He said: “I got the idea to raise the money following teaching sessions at the medical school, where it became obvious how difficult it is to teach what breast cancers feel like without having real patients, which just isn’t a viable for more than one or two students. Therefore I set out to find the best way to realistically simulate breast cancer off the ward and came across LimbsandThings.

“If a description of breast cancer is worth 1,000 words, being able to accurately recognise what a cancer might feel like is worth a library.”

To sponsor Dr Gill visit www.justgiving.com/Biking4Breasts and to join him in his cycling marathon, email [email protected]