In 2014, 62 year-old Stourbridge resident, Steve Hill, was diagnosed with prostate cancer. He was treated by TUF scholar and Consultant Urological Surgeon at the Royal Wolverhampton NHS Trust, Mr Peter Cooke. The operation to remove Steve’s prostate was completed by a Da Vinci Robot; the equipment TUF had funded Mr Cooke to train on.
Up until his diagnosis, Steve really had very little idea he had prostate cancer.
“I was quite shocked at having prostate cancer because I barely had any symptoms. I had blood in my pee once, and that was it. I felt fine otherwise. The weird thing is that you imagine people who have cancer are unwell. I wasn’t unwell at all, so when I was treated I was in this odd position where I went to the hospital feeling fine knowing that I would feel worse afterwards.”
After a conversation with Mr Cooke, Steve chose the option of robotic surgery.
“I had a choice. I had seen a surgeon elsewhere who said he would do an open prostatectomy, but Mr Cooke told me what the robot could do.”
We asked Mr Cooke why robotic surgery was such a useful tool.
“What robotic surgery does is it enables you to operate on people more effectively. It’s minimally invasive so we operate for less time and there is less blood loss. With robotic surgery, I can now tell them that I’ll probably be able to keep them sexually active and that they won’t have incontinence for very long at all.”
Steve’s speedy recovery time was so fast that he has already undertaken a fundraising challenge for TUF since the operation, doing a 10k for the charity with his son.
“I was always a keen runner, and after the operation, I was up and running again in four weeks. I wanted to fundraise because I want us all to know more about prostate cancer and also to train more people like Mr Cooke. I’m so grateful that The Urology Foundation were able to provide him with his training.”
Mr Cooke believes cases like Steve show how important TUF’s work is.
“People like Steve are why TUF has been so important to me. TUF funded me to go to Nashville, Tennessee in 2012, where we learnt from an unbelievable urologist called Joseph Smith at his medical centre. TUF provided me with the chance to obtain that insight into how you can apply different ideas to your own environment. Now I’ve used the robot to do 120 operations.
That’s why the investment matters – going to Nashville all that time ago now means we can operate on patients like Steve and they will have fewer long-term side effects."
We can only fund people like Mr Pete Cooke with continued donations. You can donate to The Urology Foundation here
