Today marks World Cancer Day where we honour those impacted by cancer.  I’ve been an integrative cancer doctor for over 25 years and have heard hundreds of stories of people’s journey through cancer and helped many people living with and beyond a diagnosis. But I rarely talk about my own journey and why I specialised as a palliative care doctor having qualified in medicine.

My own brother died very young of a very aggressive form of cancer, which I now believe unconsciously propelled me into a career wanting to help others following his death. I have always felt passionately about treating my patients and their families with compassion and respect and offering the safe space I needed but was lacking following my brothers diagnosis and the trauma I suffered from his death.    

Although I left palliative medicine and went onto run the Integrative Cancer Care Service at the Bristol Homeopathic Hospital then onto NCIM, many of my patients even today at the National Centre for Integrative Medicine are cancer patients, some end of life, many living with cancer. I offer many different ways of helping using patient-centered integrative medicine including mistletoe therapy, a pharmaceutically prepared extract from the mistletoe plant which can help patients with the side effects of cancer and treatment.

Today cancer statistics suggest that 1 in 2 of us will be diagnosed with cancer at some point in their lifetime, meaning that realistically we will all know someone impacted by a cancer diagnosis. I feel more passionately than ever that there is more than just conventional medicine for someone living with cancer – so much can be done to offer support and hope alongside surgery, drugs and radiation to improve symptoms, quality of life and adress the psychological impact of cancer.