The award-winning radiotherapy and radiography podcast Rad Chat celebrated its two-year anniversary earlier this month, with a birthday episode highlighting big moments from the past two years and unveiling what to look out for next year.
Rad Chat is a therapeutic radiographer led oncology podcast, designed for cancer patients, healthcare professionals, academics, and researchers. It is hosted by therapeutic radiographers Naman Julka-Anderson and Joanna McNamara.
Ms McNamara said: “We both have very different professional backgrounds, but we shared a passion for improving radiotherapy and oncology services, utilising the patient voice to educate healthcare professionals and raising the profile of radiography.”
'A labour of love'
Rad Chat has produced over 200 episodes and been listened to more than 900,000 times on paid platforms. It has won five awards, and been used by over 200 people to formalise their continuing professional development.
Ms McNamara added: “The podcast is a labour of love and although we dedicate a lot of our personal time to it we recognise the impact it is making to patients, students and healthcare professionals. This spurs us on to deliver even more!”
The team said that some of their greatest achievements over the last two years had been: the amazing guests that had been invited; the radiotherapy education event they hosted for breast cancer patients at Future Dreams; the creation of a webinar highlighting innovative radiotherapy with Leo Cancer Care and a national webinar for school and college pupils to learn more about cancer and radiotherapy; supporting more than six different charities to improve their radiotherapy information; and working with charities to formalise the research, demonstrating the impact they are making.
'A resource to learn more'
Next year Rad Chat will be hosting its own Rad Chat Radiotherapy theatre at the Oncology Professional Care Conference, helping to educate the multidisciplinary team about the radiation treatments and the professionals involved in its delivery.
Ms McNamara said: “We were informed last week by a university admissions tutor that they were reading a personal statement that referenced Rad Chat as a resource they used to learn more about radiotherapy and oncology and the role of the therapeutic radiographer.
“I interviewed an applicant for an apprenticeship position this week and they’d learnt about radiotherapy through Rad Chat and quoted some of the episodes where people living with cancer had talked about the impact therapeutic radiographers had made to their lives.”
The rest of the team includes University of Suffolk third year student Tara Smith, University of Cardiff third year student Muhammad Ubad Urrahmaan, and South West Wales Cancer Centre Band 5 therapeutic radiographer Leigha Yardley.
(Image: Rad Chat)