PATRICK DUDLEY

As a Band 5 Radiographer at Charing Cross Hospital I have had the pleasure of working in a difficult and fast-paced working environment. After taking a year away from radiotherapy after my degree, I was ready to get back to my passion. Though challenging at first, I quickly found my feet and was able to become a productive and respected member of the department delivering first-class care to my patients. Alongside getting to grips with the Varian machines (having only Elekta experience), and learning the protocols and techniques of specialised treatment modalities (SABR, Xstrahl etc.), I have been able to massively progress my professional development through mentoring and CPD. As a result of my ongoing pursuit for holistic knowledge in the field of radiotherapy, I have become an experienced radiotherapist with a plethora of skills and attributes. I´ve learnt to develop my ability to work effectively as a team member, I have excelled at leading and guiding my peers in times of stress and complications and I have displayed my caring and kind attitude when dealing with patients. As a result I have been honoured with the opportunity to broaden my horizons to the research side of radiotherapy. In winter last year I was accepted into a Research and Development programme run by Imperial College London where I learnt the fundamentals of both creating academic research papers and critically appraising them. This has proved immensely useful in my day-to-day operations as I am able to assess the success of certain areas of my clinical practice and apply evidence-based learning to my role as a radiotherapist. Furthermore, in winter last year I was asked to help present at an international conference for industry leading companies and healthcare facilities around the world. This SGRT Conference was the perfect chance for me to show my skills of presentation and data assessment. I was privileged to be in and amongst so many experienced and fantastic healthcare professionals. I

In my role as a radiotherapist at Charing Cross Hospital, I have the unique chance of working with new and innovative treatment technologies such as the new tomotherapy machine. Within less than three days I had learnt the protocols and steps to ensure this amazing new technology was being applied correctly to provide outstanding and state-of-the-art radiation therapy to our patients. As a show of my team's trust in me, I was chosen to be Operator 1 on the 2nd ever patient at the trust. Every day I am able to affect people’s lives in the most incredible way.

For 2 years, I worked for an award-winning micropub/ale house, which served locally-produced wines, beers, ciders, and spirits. Joining a small but renowned customer-facing business, with a heavy focus on trusting the
independence of workers, I quickly developed the necessary management skills to become a Supervisor. This new title came with greater responsibilities such as training new hires, organising stock management, and coordinating staff roles and jobs throughout the week.
Entrusted to monitor the customers’ actions and intake of alcohol throughout the evening to ensure our in-house regulations were being adhered to. This ensured customer and staff safety.
Developed an outstanding level of customer service through individualised food and drink recommendations. I was soon relied upon to handle any situations whereby a customer wanted greater insight into which purchases were best for them.
In charge of accepting and sending deliveries, monitoring stock rotation, and delegating cleaning roles so that the workplace was presentable and hygienic at all times.
Given property keys and safe combinations for day-to-day operations and money management.
Within the last 8-12 months, the pub introduced food to the rotating menu. This allowed me to widen my skills and
knowledge in customer service. As part of this implementation, the staff were given the opportunity to complete a food safety course, which I applied for immediately ( the contents of this course included the rules and regulations of serving food and the unique skills of presentation and food standards).

The hours of work at this employment have varied over the years. At times it was as much as 25-30 hours a week, other times it may have reached 10-15 hours. This was dependent on availability and opening time changes.

The general role of this job was to collect furniture and merchandise from the warehouse and transport it to the relevant apartment/house that was being styled for sale.
During this time, I really developed my communication skills as a crucial element of this job was coordinating with several people in different roles with different objectives for the day.
Organising delivery times and day plans was intricate work when the 8 sub-teams were working at the same time.
Another skill area that this job allowed me to develop was organisation, particularly when several tasks were being carried out that involved overlapping staff members and items. 8 trucks were dropping off and taking away dozens of items at a time, all of which needed to be managed and organised so that no jobs were left incomplete and no time was wasted.
This was legally considered a part-time job; however, the hours were full time. The hours were 7 am to 3 pm, but regularly we had to stay behind and work past paid hours.

My main job role was to greet customers, identify their needs, and assist with product selection.
Learned to solve multiple customers with varying needs in quick succession whilst maintaining a calm and positive
attitude.
As the vast majority of the time spent in this role was running the shop independently, I had to learn to effectively
and swiftly settle difficult scenarios to ensure the shop was maintaining the high standard reputation it had
garnered. These issues often occurred whilst I was providing customer service or during refund processing.
Arranged merchandise and advertisements to highlight certain products or deals to attract customers and
enhance sales during quiet and busy periods.

The hours for this job ranged depending on need. I was studying at the time (including during clinical practice), which took precedence. At the most the hours ranged from 15-20 hours a week to 5-10 a week.