I am a Consultant Thoracic Surgeon at Guys & St Thomas Hospital, operating on patients with the potentially deadly conditions of lung cancer and mesothelioma. Surgery offers patients the best chance of cure and minimally invasive surgery helps patients recover as quickly as possible. We now offer Robotic Surgery which is a further important advance in cancer treatment, and needs further investment.  

In addition, some patients have cancers that are too advanced for surgical removal. There are exciting new treatments, immunotherapy that may help these patients live longer but we need to understand more, about how individual tumours behave to give every patient the tailored and life saving treatment they need. 

At Guys, we see a huge number of patients, one of the biggest centres worldwide, and we so are in a great position to study tumours in depth. This research requires financial support for laboratory equipment and tests, in addition to staffing costs for data collection and analysis. 

Although surgery is often curative there are risks and complications and we continually strive to improve the outcomes and quality of life for all our patients and their families. Donations will also go to help this more practical clinical area of research into the smoothing the patient operative pathway before, during and after surgery. An example of this is, 3 years ago I ran the Glencoe marathon and we used £9,000 of the donations to fund high flow oxygen machines meaning patients at high risk of respiratory complications could be treated on the ward rather than intensive care.  

One important factor in patient recovery is pre and post operative exercise to gain strength and improve fitness. I hope my cycle around Loch ness will show by example what exercise can achieve for a healthy body and mind.  

I am aiming to raise 1 million pounds, so please donate to the page, with every single donation welcome. In addition.....

I invite you all to take up a local (or distant!) challenge to help raise money for our fund, be it a jog, a park run 5Km, a cycle, a swim, some home workouts, a weight loss challenge or just daily walks. With corona virus on the prowl, it is especially important to try to keep as fit as possible.

For those unable to exercise perhaps you might consider raising funds with a cake bake sale, an online bake off, a quiz night, a home gameathon with your favourite board game be it Cards, Scrabble, Monopoly or even the dreaded X Box! 

Please either donate directly to this page or if you wish your own page to be donated to the fund go to Just Giving, chose Guys & St Thomas and make it clear in your title that the funds are to go to the Lung Cancer & Mesothelioma Fund number 876.

I will be cycling the 66 mile circular route around Loch Ness in the Scottish Highlands!

THE ROUTE

The Etape Loch Ness follows a 66-mile / 106-km route, starting by the riverside at Bught Park, Inverness IV3 5SQ and finishing by Eden Court, Bishops Road, Inverness IV3 5SA.  Leaving Inverness, the route follows the A82 west to Fort Augustus, passing through the villages of Drumnadrochit and Invermoriston, arriving in Fort Augustus where it crosses the historic Caledonian Canal. The route then starts its return journey to Inverness via South Loch Ness on the B862/B852.

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