The Thames Cancer Registry was host to two international visitors for four weeks in May-June this year. Dr Maria Aamir, Head of the National Cancer Registry, visited from the United Arab Emirates, and Mr Abdulazeez James, Cancer Registrar, visited from Maiduguri, Nigeria. Maria had obtained a Calum Muir Scholarship from the International Association of Cancer Registries and James had obtained an ICRETT Fellowship from the International Union Against Cancer to visit. The registries in the UAE and Maiduguri have been operational for a number of years. The registry at Maiduguri is in the process of turning the hospital based registry to a population based registry whilst the registry in the UAE is consolidating and expanding. This was an opportunity for Maria and James to see how an established population based registry worked.
Their visit was coordinated by Karen Linklater, Senior Information Analyst at the Registry. The first week of the their visit was spent on general Registry business, spending half a day or a day with each team, to see how the data are collected, input, quality assured, processed and output. Maria and James were then working on a small project each; Maria concentrated on gallbladder and bile duct cancers and James on liver cancers. Each visitor was mentored by members of the Research Team and at the end of the stay they both gave a presentation on the work they had been doing.
The Thames Cancer Registry will be hosting international summer visitors again in 2009, from 18th May to 12th June. If you are interested in joining us at TCR during this period you should contact Professor Henrik Møller (henrik.moller@kcl.ac.uk).