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Oncologist
Specializes in diagnosing and treating cancer using chemotherapy, radiation, and immunotherapy.
Did you know?
Cancer Research UK reported in 2014 that UK cancer survival had doubled in 40 years, thanks to research and better treatments.
How subjects help
- Biology: Understand how cancer cells grow out of control and spread to other parts of the body.
- Chemistry: Choose chemotherapy drugs that attack cancer cells because they divide so fast.
- Mathematics: Work out treatment doses from a patient's height and weight and track tumour size.
A famous name
Sidney Farber: Achieved the first remissions of childhood leukaemia with chemotherapy in 1948.
Try it yourself: Take your pulse like a nurse
- Put two fingers (not your thumb) on the inside of your wrist, below your thumb, until you feel a beat.
- Count the beats for 15 seconds, then multiply by 4. That is your resting heart rate per minute.
- If you can, do 20 star jumps, then count again straight away.
- Check every minute until it is back to where it started. How long did it take?
Nurses, doctors and paramedics take a pulse all day: it is one of the quickest ways to tell how a body is coping.
Also try: Measure how far a sneeze flies.
Known for it in
USA, Germany, Japan, Australia, UK