Humanising breast cancer for tomorrow's researchers

Students on the Clinical Pharmacology BSc at City St George’s, University of London, are training to become expert scientists. They will go on to develop drugs to help more people diagnosed with diseases like breast cancer to live, and live well. 

It’s vital that the students understand biology and disease to develop effective drugs. But it’s also important that they understand the human experience of breast cancer. It demonstrates why developing drugs is so important. And why breast cancer drugs should meet the holistic needs of people diagnosed. 

Over the past 4 years, we’ve worked with City St. George to include the voices of people affected by breast cancer in their course. A number of Voices have gotten involved in this to share their experiences with the students.  

Every year, 1 or 2 Voices attend a workshop for second year students to share their experience of breast cancer. They talk about their diagnosis and treatment, and what the ongoing impact or challenges of breast cancer are. Students also have the chance to ask questions.  

We work hard to make sure that the Voices are well supported and empowered in these sessions. The students can find the sessions challenging as they hearing about the real experiences and challenges of breast cancer.  But they consistently rate these sessions very highly. 

Chris Threapleton, a lecturer at City St. George's, talks about the impact one of our Voices had when she joined a workshop with students last year:

"We were very lucky to have one of the Voices speak to our students. She gave a fascinating account of her experience, which gave a lot of flavour to our other teaching on the science of cancer. This session speaking to the Voice about her experience with breast cancer was enlightening and gave real human element to our teaching.  The students really enjoyed the session and found it very interesting."

These sessions give students the opportunity to learn about the personal impact of a serious health condition. They inspire the students to think about the individual people living with health conditions. And they ensure that future research is person-centred and focusses on what matters most to those living with health conditions.