Who is Simon the surgeon?
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Who is Simon the surgeon?
"I find the surgery bit, it sounds a bit strange, but the relaxing part of the week."
The surgeon from London started out as a dentist, and when his friends become doctors he couldn't see the appeal of it.
Drifting into the world of a hospital, he began to enjoy it, and today has been working as a consultant since 2006.
Even though he has to be on-call every six weekdays and weekends, it's a decent job, just like any other.
What is in the diary of a surgeon?
Simon said: "Often they can have long term effects in terms of their speech and swallowing, a lot of our patients have difficulty in socialising because they feel very self conscious afterwards."
So, it takes an awful lot of support, but equally these people can be very rewarding to work with."
He describes the most "stressful" part of the job as when he has to give bad news to people, or when their treatment takes a turn for the worst.
MONDAY
HOSPITAL CANCER CLINIC + OPERATING
TUESDAY
AT UCLH
SURGERY
ALL DAY!
WEDNESDAY
BIG CANCER MEETING
+ MORE CLINIC
THURSDAY
WARD ROUNDS + PAPERWORK...
FRIDAY
MAYBE OPERATE OR
HOMETIME!
Want to know more about oral cancer? Click the forceps...
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Simon Whitley is a 49-year-old Oral and Maxillofacial surgeon at University College London Hospital. He manages patients who have general oral problems and cancer in the Royal London Hospitals and St Barts.
Patients who have facial pain or benign mouth conditions may be consulted by him, however he specialises in oral cancer, salivary gland surgery, facial skin cancer and reconstruction following cancer surgery.
Surgery can end up taking 8-12 hours depending on whether it involves removing cancerous tissue or reconstruction.
Simon said: "It depends where the cancer starts, for instance you can have a cancer of your tongue which means removing quite a large portion of the tongue and then we would need to try and build a new tongue"
If it involves your jaw, chances are a new one would have to be rebuilt, along with the replacement of the surrounding lining. You can get tissue from the skin on a forearm or leg.
No day is quite the same, different patients from different backgrounds who need a whole range of surgeries tend to make the job of a surgeon particularly interesting.
Yet with varied treatments after surgery, comes the difficult task of helping them through their journey.