Various health professionals form a health team in charge of a patient. To know them better this is a summary explaining what each does.
- The anesthesiologist is a specialize doctor that pts the patient to sleep for a surgery, check his sleeping and waking up phase after the intervention. He can also relieve pain.
- The oncologist is a specialized physician in cancer pathology and treatments. It can be a surgeon, a gynaecologist, a paediatrician….specialized in cancer, a radiotherapist, a chemotherapist.
- The chemotherapist is a specialized physician that takes care of the treatment of cancer through medication. He can put in place 3 types of treatments: chemotherapy (chemical products), hormonal therapy (hormones) and immunotherapy (stimulation of immune defences) He is also called a medical oncologist.
- The surgeon is a specialized physician that does surgeries. Some surgeons are specialized in oncology. Those are the ones that operate on tumors.
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The registered nurse is in charge of the care of the patient, their monitoring and their treatment administration. The nurse can work within a hospital or liberally. The nurse chief is a nurse responsible for the coordination of a department within the hospital. He plays an important role in communication between the health team and the patient.
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The radiotherapist technician is responsible for the radiotherapy tools. He is also in charge of making sure the radiotherapy session happen properly, in collaboration with the physician. He takes care of the patient in the treating room, helps him get ready and makes sure the areas to be treated are well demarcated. He also makes sure the patient does not react abnormally to the treatment.
- The physiotherapist helps the patient re-educating different areas of his body, through specific movements.
- The general practitioner takes in charge the different health problems of the patient. He has a very important role during diagnosis, treatment and follow-up of the cancer. He is the link between the hospital/clinic where the patient is treated. He is the referring physician, also called the treating physician.
- The pathologist is a specialized physician that examines cells or tissues under the microscope.
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The physicist is specialized in radiotherapy and radiology machines. During radiotherapy, he chooses (with the radiotherapist) the technical modalities of the treatment, especially the duration and the dose spreading, as well as the protection of non treated zones. He is also called radio-physicist, or medical physicist.
- The radiotherapist is a physician specialized in radiotherapy for the treatment of cancers. Some of them can also be specialized in curietherapy. He is also called an oncologist.
- The medical secretary welcomes and helps the patient. She organizes the consultations, makes contact with the health team and keeps up to date the patient’s file. She is also called a medical assistant.
- The urologist (or urological surgeon) is a physician specialized in genitourinary problems, especially in the diagnosis, treatment and follow up of urological cancers : kidney, bladder, prostate, testicles and penile cancer. He is the one operating on the tumor.
