Radiotherapy patient or sheep?

Thanks @JoeyLiz I appreciate the information as to why certain things happen the way they do.

I certainly will be writing to the clinic, which is privately held, and copying in the hospital where it is located.

@kezmusc I appreciate that when you get to this point in your treatment you feel like all sorts of people have seen you in a state of undress, but personally I still prefer to limit that group to a 'strictly necessary' basis. It is not necessary for non-patients to be in a patient only waiting area with patients required to be half undressed.

In regard to the waiting, I appreciate that sometimes a wait is unavoidable but that doesn't excuse a lack of communication around it. Why do I need to sit in a waiting room for forty minutes in a gown when I could go for a walk or a coffee and come back when they are ready for me? 

@Vangirl apologies that you feel this way. My suggestion is to write a letter to the department telling them of your experience so they can take that feedback on board for future patients.

Sometimes things go wrong that are out of the staffs control, they may have gotten you changed expecting you to go in within 5 minutes but then had a machine issue which meant you were left waiting. Of course this should have been communicated to you. The department I work for does ring patients if we know we will definitely be unable to make your time, and reception tells people on arrival if we are more than 30mins behind so they can go away if they like. 

And you are right, the area where a patient is changed should not be accessible to non patients that is what the main waiting room is for and any overlap of changed patients should be minimised.

Changing of staff mid patient is sometimes unavoidable as we are legally not allowed to be at the machine for more than 3 hours without a break, it is hard around lunchtimes. 

It sounds like the staff at your centre need a kick up the bum and a reminder of why they became radiation therapists! 

Hey@Vangirl,

Aww that's no good, but yay, nearly done.

I guess it depends where you go and who's running the show. Yes, I had to wait sometimes in the gown but by that time I was so used to waiting for doctors and treatment I really didn't expect anything else. The gown didn't bother me too much as by then I figured every man and his dog had seen my boobs, so whatever, at least I was covered.

 There were family members in there as well for other people getting nuked. Those of us who were there around the same time each day became chatty.  There was one guy there for prostate cancer that spent the whole time winging about Tamoxifen....omen maybe??  :)

It is a bit rough that they changed staff during treatment I agree.  Your not in there that long so surely they could have waited.  I didn't have that issue.  I mostly had the same nurses throughout.  Same two in the morning and the same two on the afternoon shift if I went later.  

I guess the whole thing is a bit like a conveyor belt, but it makes it all streamlined I suppose.  Personal? Depends on who you are dealing with through treatment.  Some are great, some are just at work.

Hope you feel better soon.
xoxoxo