Dr Richard Shaffer is a Consultant Clinical Oncologist based at Royal Surrey County Hospital NHS Foundation Trust.
Dr Shaffer specialises in using chemotherapy and radiotherapy to treat brain tumours, prostate and bladder cancer, and skin cancer. He has extensive experience of using highly-technical radiotherapy, including Intensity Modulated Radiation Therapy (IMRT) for prostate cancer and brain tumours. He is able to offer IGRT (image-guided radiotherapy) for prostate cancer. He is currently developing a local intracranial stereotactic radiotherapy service.
He has an interest in the treatment of benign disease with radiotherapy, including early Dupuytren's disease of the hand, Ledderhose disease of the foot, and plantar fasciitis with radiotherapy. To this end he helped write the RCR guidelines on this topic, and acts as a medical advisor to the British Dupuytrens Society.
He is currently the chair of the Technical Radiotherapy Group, chairs the Network Brain Tumour Working Group, and is an active member of the St Lukes Radiotherapy Strategy Group. He is a member of the NCRI Brain Tumour Clinical Studies Group. He is also a trustee of the Fountain Centre, a charity which provides information, support, counselling and complementary therapies for cancer patients and their carers and relatives at St Lukes Cancer Centre.
Previous to his role at the Royal Surrey County Hospital, Dr Shaffer completed a Clinical Fellowship in Radiation Oncology at the British Columbia Cancer Agency in Vancouver, Canada. He gained further skills in specialist registrar posts at Charing Cross Hospital, Royal Free Hospital and University College London Hospital.