Working Life: Men can struggle to verbalise their fears and I try to help them with that
Karen Thomas, urology clinical nurse specialist, Beacon Hospital, Dublin. Picture: Moya Nolan
I like to start with coffee in bed. My work commute is easy - a 20-minute drive to Sandyford.
The first little while is spent on non-direct patient contact work as most patients don’t want an early-morning call. Then it’s time for my first appointment.
Key to what I do is providing support to people following a urology cancer diagnosis. Bladder, kidney, testicular and prostate cancer all come under this banner, but most of my referrals are for prostate cancer.
Because of the pandemic, a lot of appointments are by phone. It works very well. A previous job with the Irish Cancer Society Nurse Helpline helped me develop advanced communication skills.
Men can struggle to verbalise their fears and I try to help them with that. Some are reluctant to talk at first but often you can see and hear them realising the benefits of talking things through.
After a quick coffee, I start a face-to-face clinic to prepare patients due to undergo prostate cancer surgery. We discuss side effects, principally urinary incontinence and impact on erectile function. It’s quite a tough clinic for them emotionally because there is a lot to talk through and they are hearing in detail information they may not want to hear.
Lunch, then preparation for our multidisciplinary team meeting where everyone involved in urology cancer diagnosis and treatment discusses the cases listed for that week.
A treatment decision support clinic, either by phone, virtual consult or face to face. I discuss treatment options with patients following their consultations with the various consultants. This clinic is about helping men with prostate cancer decide which treatment to have.
It can take a number of conversations for them to decide because the amount of information can be overwhelming. This clinic can be very rewarding, helping men from the start of cancer diagnosis to making their treatment decisions.
Urology multidisciplinary team (MDT) meeting.
I work until about 7.30pm, making calls after MDT and recording outcomes.
This was a long day, but others are short. That’s the joy of this role - it’s very flexible. I love my job, it can be tough, but it’s satisfying when a patient comes back to me and says: “You don’t know what a difference you made to me".
