Meg Burgess is a specialist nurse at Prostate Cancer UK, who has worked there part-time for 18 years. Molly Lee spoke to her about her role, her experiences with supporting transgender prostate cancer patients, and more
What got you into nursing, specifically for prostate cancer?
My background has always been in urology. So, I’ve been a nurse now for about 35 years. My first ever job was on a urology ward, and I was there for 12 or so years, looking after men with prostate cancer.
I left to have babies, did some general nursing, a little bit of palliative care and worked in a hospice. I saw the job advert for Prostate Cancer UK and thought that it would be a really nice role.
I didn’t realise it would be as varied and as complex as it is, and in fact lots of people said to me when I joined here, you won’t last, you’ll miss the patient contact. But actually, I have more patient contact than I’ve ever had in any other role.
What does your day-to-day work entail?
Part of my role is talking on the telephone and so I spend nearly all day talking. I don’t have the same pressure as I have in the NHS, we have the luxury of time to be able to give the time that people need.
So that’s part of my role is being on the helpline but we also have an email service and a live chat service. We get involved in lots of other bits of work across the charity as well. So, it’s a really lovely, varied role.
I’ve been doing it for such a long time and every day is a school day so I’m still learning stuff and you never know what a day is going to be like and if you’re on the helpline, if you’re on the telephone service, you never know what the next call is going to be and that’s what keeps it fresh. I guess that’s what keeps me here.
Have you had any difficult days on the job?
Yeah, there can be hard days and there can be really hard conversations and there can be some sad conversations as well and I guess we have ways of dealing with that.
We make sure that as a team, if you’ve had a difficult day or a difficult call, we come together, we have a debrief at the end of the day. So, our debrief is a place to be able to, you know, talk about things that have been hard or to bounce ideas off other people and we get clinical supervision as well. So, every six weeks we have a clinical supervisor where we can bring anything to our supervisor to talk through as well.
It’s unusual now that I have calls that stay with me. Usually by the end of the day, I’ve been able to process things, talk to other people, find support. I’m experienced now I suppose, and I’ve found ways of dealing with those sorts of difficult or sad calls but it’s unusual to leave at the end of the day and to be left with those sorts of feelings.
Have you had any experiences with a member of the transgender community going through a prostate cancer diagnosis?
You know Prostate Cancer UK has a real sort of masculine male brand and we’re aware of that and I think in some ways it’s a little bit unapologetic because it’s to be able to reach those men and for men to be able to take action. We try really hard, despite the fact that our branding is male, to make sure that we can provide information for hard-to-reach groups including the trans community.
I remember the first person that I spoke to who was a trans woman who was phoning up to ask about PSA and what their PSA should be, and I didn’t have the answers. We had no written information, there was no acknowledgement on our online information for the trans community, and I just didn’t know the answers. I was able to be empathetic and see if I could find out more and point in the right direction. I do remember the sense of letting that caller down by not knowing the answers.
We have tried to develop our information, and I was involved in the first information that was written by our health information team. We talked to the trans community to be able to see what the needs were, and making sure that we got the information right.
We made sure that our online community also had a space, a dedicated space for trans women or non-binary individuals and it gave us as nurses a little bit more understanding of some of the challenges that come up with prostate issues and the trans community and how to talk about that. There was also a training session with Stonewall.
There’s been individuals who had been gender questioning all their life but had never told anybody, but the hormone therapy, following on from the prostate cancer diagnosis, was sort of gender affirming to them.
The first call that I had of that nature, I was the first person that this person had spoken to about their feelings and they really used me as a sounding board and by watching my reaction, they realised it was the first step of them transitioning.
Do you think more work needs to be done to support both cis men, transgender females and other people dealing with prostate cancer?
Absolutely, prostate cancer is a growing issue with it now being the most commonly diagnosed cancer in England. If a cis man or transitioned woman are over the age of 50, they should be PSA tested.
Not only should the information be available for the trans community but for health professionals as well. I didn’t realise at first that when a trans woman undergoes gender reassignment surgery, the prostate is left in place.
We need to make sure we’re not leaving anybody behind.