Mark Wheeler

Standing Voice Skin Cancer Advisory Committee Member

By Standing Voice

August 27^th, 2019

Mark Wheeler is a Dublin-based GP with a special interest in dermatology. After a period of living and working in Malawi, Mark decided to collaborate with Standing Voice in the replication of our Skin Cancer Prevention Programme in Malawi. Today, he is a member of our Skin Cancer Advisory Committee and leads the clinical development of our service by mentoring and training healthcare workers in Malawi.

We’re incredibly thankful for the indispensable contribution Mark has made to the growth of our work in Malawi.

Scroll down to read his inspiring story.

* * * * *

I always wanted to be a GP, and began my journey at University College London. After graduating in 1987 I started GP training and as part of this I worked in Australia which is where I first properly encountered skin cancer. Later I moved with my wife, Carol, to Ireland and worked for six months in the Dublin Skin and Cancer Hospital. It was there that my interest in dermatology became a real passion, leading me to eventually earn my diploma in dermatology from Cardiff University in the late 1990s and begin my career as a GP with a special interest in dermatology.

In 1997 I took over a small single-handed practice in a deprived area of Dublin. Over the next 20 years, I developed it into a partnership more along the lines of an NHS-style practice; we now have three partners.

For years I had wanted to go back to Africa, where I had once worked as a student doctor, and in 2013 got the chance to take a sabbatical. After doing some research on where to go we decided on Cape Maclear in Malawi. It’s a wonderful area at the southernmost tip of Lake Malawi. I worked in the clinic and my wife Carol found a great role as a teacher in a local secondary school. My 16-year-old daughter worked in a Youth Project.

It was while working in the clinic that I first encountered albinism and the suffering from constant sunburn and skin cancer that those affected endure. At home we don’t see many people with albinism, and the more I learned about it in Malawi the more I became interested and wanted to help.

My journey to my current role within Standing Voice began with a chance encounter. One day I had decided to conduct a medical examination of all the people with albinism who were living in the village where we were working. I had finished and was leaving the clinic when I met Bonface Massah who was waiting for me. Bonface is a prominent albinism activist who is now Standing Voice’s Country Director in Malawi. Bonface had been visiting some people with albinism locally and he had heard about my interest in albinism and had come to meet me. Some weeks later he invited me to Dedza to show me a skin cancer and eye-screening clinic he’d been running with some ophthalmologists from Italy. When I arrived he told me that the dermatologist from Malawi was unable to attend. I had thought I was just going to be an observer but I ended up stepping in and examining all the patients and so our working relationship began.

After leaving Malawi, I contacted Dr Kelvin Mponda, the country’s first dermatologist. We got talking and decided that with Bonface we would try to set up some kind of programme to help people with albinism in Malawi. I finally met Kelvin in January 2015 in Tanzania at the Regional Dermatology Training Centre, and we soon decided to take the leap and make it happen. Meanwhile and luckily for us, my wife Carol had done some research and had discovered the charity Standing Voice in the UK. We decided to reach out to see whether Standing Voice would work with us to replicate in Malawi what they had already established in Tanzania. We travelled to London to meet the team, and were delighted to discover they were already planning to expand their Skin Cancer Prevention Programme to another African country. It felt like we came along at exactly the right time and the first clinics in Malawi occurred in October 2016.

My role since has been extraordinarily varied. When I’m in Malawi, I’m very much focused on training local clinicians to recognise skin cancer, the importance of prevention and assisting them in the operating theatre to remove cancers. From Ireland, I support the programme by coordinating referrals and planning clinics. I’m also part of the Standing Voice Skin Cancer Advisory Committee, which is a great honour. As a global body of experts, the committee’s function is to guide the clinical development of the Skin Cancer Prevention Programme and disseminate its findings through research, conferences and symposia. Our biggest milestone so far has been the creation and publication of the “Manual of Best Practice”: a ground-breaking guide to skin cancer prevention for clinicians across Africa who are working with patients with albinism. We’re very excited about the way this tool can help us to transform clinical practice in the region, giving people with albinism access to higher-quality dermatological care.

The growth of the Skin Cancer Prevention Programme is extremely encouraging. Every year we see more patients; this also means that numbers of cancer cases are increasing, but that’s to be expected and it’s a challenge we will strive to meet. It’s going to be some time before we see a broad reduction in the prevalence of cancer within this population, but we’re working hard to improve prevention by distributing protective clothing and sunscreen and delivering health education.

Last year at the end of one of the surgery days, a young man came into the clinic. Despite looking young and fit, when he undressed and I examined him I discovered that he had developed a large advanced skin cancer on his neck. I sent him immediately down to our operating theatre where the surgeons were able to excise the cancerous lesion on the spot. Within two hours, this man was examined, diagnosed and cured of his life-threatening cancer by simple surgery. To me that was amazing; it proved what this programme is able to achieve, to save someone’s life in a few short hours. I’ve been a GP for thirty years but this was one of my most rewarding experiences.

I have grown very fond of Malawi and its people since I first arrived there in 2013. Now I have the opportunity to put my dermatology knowledge to use in a country that I care about and which very much needs help. My whole family is connected to the work of Standing Voice: my wife, Carol, supports with logistics and fundraising for the Malawian programme and my four daughters have all been involved and are incredibly supportive. Our daughter Sinead ran a half marathon in aid of the charity earlier this year. Molly recently went to Tanzania to help out with the charity’s Summer Skills Workshop and my eldest daughter, who is in her final year of GP training, is hoping to go to Malawi in Spring 2020 to work in our clinics and in the palliative care of some patients. Other relatives have given financial support to our work.

It is wonderful to see our ideas come to life with the help of Standing Voice, and to work together with such a passionate and energetic team of people who use their talents and expertise to help people with albinism fight cancer.