ESTRO 2024 - Abstract Book

S5747

RTT - Education, training, advanced practice and role developments

ESTRO 2024

475

Digital Poster

Lived experience of the student therapeutic radiographer 'they don't need to see how you see them'.

Bridget Mary Porritt 1,2 , Rod Dubbrow Marshall 3 , Victoria Halliwell 1

1 University of Salford, Health and Society, Salford, United Kingdom. 2 University of Liverpool, Therapeutic Radiography, Liverpool, United Kingdom. 3 University of Salford, Health & Society, Salford, United Kingdom

Purpose/Objective:

Background:

Therapeutic Radiographers and Therapeutic Radiography students are exposed to emotionally demanding situations in their daily care of cancer patients and their family/carers (Society of Radiographers SOR, 2016). The impact of this caring responsibility has yet to be explored in relation to the student therapeutic radiographer. Emotional exhaustion is much reported in relation to other allied health professional groups and is a known contributor to professionals deciding to leave their chosen profession (French, 2004) and high rates of attrition from pre-registration educations programmes (McPake, 2021).

Aim : To explore the lived experience of the student therapeutic radiographer.

Material/Methods:

Methodology:

The aim was to explore the lived experience of the student Therapy Radiographer during pre-registration training. Utilising an Interpretive Phenomenological Analysis (IPA) (Creswell, 2013) which embraces the idea of multiple realities. Multiple semi-structured interviews with the same participants a time points throughout a 12-month period during pre-registration training allowed data collection from a sample representing all 3 years of the BSc (Hons) and 2 years of the Post Graduate (PG) Radiotherapy programmes. During the interview, dialogue was recorded and later transcribed by the researcher. Interview questions evolved throughout the process, as themes emerged and the student experience changed during the 12-month period of the study. Findings were interpreted using Interpretive Phenomenological Analysis (IPA) (Smith, 2011) A robust analysis of participant interview transcripts generated a large number of emergent themes and then clusters of common themes in the form of superordinate and master themes. All participants shared their personal accounts on their lived experience of caring for cancer patients.. Transcript themes were analysed and recurring themes identified, this enabled generation of master themes and sub-themes