Consultant Urological Surgeon, Guy’s and St Thomas' Hospitals
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What was it that led you into medicine? I loved my time at Dulwich and finished as House Captain of Grenville and a Senior Prefect in the striped blazer. My parents initially exposed me to medicine as my mother was a local GP and my father an academic dentist working at Guy's Hospital. My Dulwich biology teacher Dr Bowen-Jones enthused me with the subject and I enjoyed all the sciences which I took for A level. I also did some hospital work experience and enjoyed some clinical exposure. In my gap year I joined the Royal Artillery on a short service limited commission (SSLC) which gave me some fitness, discipline, punctuality, attention to detail and resilience; skills I found useful once starting medicine at Guy's and St Thomas' Medical Schools the year after in 1992. You recently treated Stephen Fry with him saying ‘My life was saved’. What did you do? I work as a prostate and kidney cancer specialist and was referred Stephen Fry by a local GP on account of his elevated PSA blood test for the prostate. I subsequently operated on him with robotic surgery to remove his cancerous prostate. This went well but was quite stressful looking after such a well- known celebrity. He was a real gentleman and made things easy for me by asking sensible questions and listening to the answers. However he had all the normal fears and apprehensions that men go through in this situation and we got on very well. We went on to write an article together on our shared thoughts and experiences to help other men going through this stressful process. Thankfully he recovered very well. The article can be found online on Nature Research, the multidisciplinary science journal. Can you tell us a little bit about robotic surgery? Robotic-assisted laparoscopic surgery has been around for 20 years now and is predominantly performed with the da Vinci robotic system from Intuitive Surgical. The surgeon sits at a console a few metres away from the patient and isn't scrubbed. These master-slave devices cost over £2 million pounds but provide surgeons with 3D vision, tremor free and scaled movements with multiple degrees of instrument angulation. This enables more delicate surgery which can produce improved results when compared with standard laparoscopic/ key-hole surgery. There are now over 80 of these in the UK being used by over 200 surgeons. They help us to do almost all prostate cancer surgery and over half of the surgeries for partial kidney and bladder removal. Other specialities outside urology are now becoming increasingly involved and there are some new companies entering the market place this year with their own robotic devices.
Do you have any advice to aspiring medics? Medicine remains an incredibly satisfying career and it is still hugely rewarding for me to see patients that I have looked after doing well after their operations. I still enjoy the surgery itself after 3000 complex operations and I enjoy teaching younger surgeons and research. However, there is increasing pressure from management on one’s time, and high expectations from patients at every step. To do medicine today you will need not only intelligence, technical and communication skills, but also resilience, self-motivation, initiative and plenty of hard work. It is always sensible to do some good work experience to really see what you are getting into. This could be shadowing a surgeon like myself in theatre but also spending time as a nursing auxiliary/porter or in a nursing home or GP practice. Is there anything you think people can do to adopt a healthier lifestyle? I spend a lot of time communicating how to optimise and improve men’s health. To prevent heart disease and cancer the key issues are not smoking, keeping trim and not drinking too much alcohol. Regular exercise is important with three or four sessions of 30 mins a week recommended. From a dietary point of view plenty of fruit and vegetables, limit too much red meat and good amounts of clear fluid intake- 2 litres per day. In the modern world mental health is increasingly important so using exercise, yoga/meditation, sleeping enough, and limiting screen use are also important. We need to look after ourselves and lead healthier lifestyles. If you had the power to make changes to our healthcare system what would they be and why? Clearly the NHS needs more investment. We spend less of our GDP on healthcare than almost any other developed country and this is reflected in the pressures seen in the system. The government needs to invest in more nurses and doctors as retirements are increasing due to the current pension arrangements. We have an ageing population with the baby boom generation reaching their late 70s, so the need for social and medical care needs will increase further over the coming years.
In conversation with...
Ben Challacombe (86-91) will speak at our OA Healthcare Lecture Series on 12 March 2020. Check the Alleyn Club website for more information and
BEN CHALLACOMBE
to book your place at the event.
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