Musgrove Park Hospital’s cancer centre teamed up with support group, The Swallows, to run a mask art competition at Musgrove’s Beacon Centre. The winning mask is set to feature at a national head and neck cancer conference in Blackpool.
The competition is part of a campaign to raise awareness of head and neck cancer. It aims to bring family members closer together to talk about cancer and their experiences of radiotherapy treatment.
Media make-up students from University Centre Somerset, which is part of Bridgwater and Taunton College, decorated and sculpted masks in themes chosen by patients.
Simon Goldsworthy, a principal clinical researcher, said, “We are very pleased to run this competition at Musgrove and I hope it will go some way to raising awareness of the effect of head and neck cancer treatment.
“It’s really important to get families talking about their experiences of treatment and I hope that by decorating the masks together, it can help those who have gone through radiotherapy to open up more and talk.
“We want to thank the very talented students at University Centre Somerset for taking time to get involved in this competition.”
Lydia Stainer, a student at the college who was involved in designing the masks, said, “My mum has recently had radiotherapy treatment so it was really special for me to be able to support this great exhibition.”
