Free Essay on Allied Health Profession: Radiotherapy Practitioner

Radiation therapy similarly known as radiotherapy is one of the most common allied healthcare professions. Radiation therapy is one of the primary forms of treatment for cancer. Basically radiotherapy entails the use of high energy waves that include gamma rays, electron beams and x-rays to impair or rather destroy cancer cells. Cells usually propagate and divide forming new cells. Cancer cells in this case grow and divide quicker than the normal cells hence radiation works to make minor breaks in the cell's DNA. With these breaks, the growth and division of cancer cells is significantly inhibited therefore bringing about the death of the cancerous.

Is your time best spent reading someone else’s essay? Get a 100% original essay FROM A CERTIFIED WRITER!

Order now

Radiotherapy commonly used as a local treatment method unlike chemotherapy that majors on exposure of the whole body to cancer battling drugs. Radiotherapy, in most cases, aims at and affects specific parts of the body that is to get treated (Berry & Farrell 2014). Therefore, radiation treatment comprises of a detailed plan to destroy cancer cells causing little to no harm to the neighboring healthy cells.

There are distinct jobs and services under radiotherapy. Radiotherapy professions encompass a variety of professionals such as a radiation oncologist who in this case is precisely proficient in treating cancer using radiation hence he or she is entitled to overseeing an individual's treatment plan (Baumann et al., 2016). A radiation physicist is also a vital profession under radiotherapy whereby the radiation physicist is qualified to ensure that the radiation equipment works appropriately as well as warranting that the machine gives an exact dosage as prescribed by a radiation oncologist. Another professional is a Dosimetrist who works under supervision from a radiation physicist as well as helping a radiation oncologist plan the treatment plan.

Professional organizations for radiotherapy practitioners include the American Society of Radiologic Technologists, an organization that mainly serves professions in radiologic science. American Society of Radiation Oncology is also an organization that helps the radiotherapy sector in distinct ways such as enhancing the education on radiotherapy by providing other necessary resources under radiation therapy.

Cancer is among the leading causes of deaths globally today. With a rising burden of chronic diseases like cancer comes enormous challenges that make it a difficult battle to combat. Knowledge and education on cancer are undergoing numerous extension an aspect that has fundamentally helped lengthen lives of cancer patients for instance through radiotherapy. With cancer cases rising day by day radiotherapy seeks to fight the deaths of cancer patients in this case by helping them live longer beside healthy lives. Therefore, in this field, for instance, radiotherapy gradual expanding knowledge comes in handy to curb this cancer epidemic by identifying cancer at its early stages as well as maintaining its spread. Cancer cases have also instigated a rise in campaigns to create awareness regarding cancer and what causes the different types of cancers hence encouraging a healthy society.

Reference

Baumann, M., Krause, M., Overgaard, J., Debus, J., Bentzen, S. M., Daartz, J., ... & Bortfeld, T. (2016). Radiation oncology in the era of precision medicine. Nature Reviews Cancer, 16(4), 234.

Berry, L., & Farrell, C. (2014). More attention for radiotherapy. Cancer Nursing Practice, 13(9).

Jaffray, D. A., & Gospodarowicz, M. K. (2015). Radiation therapy for cancer. DISEASE CONTROL PRIORITIES THIRD EDITION, 239.