Many of the 30 members of the Dannevirke Men’s Cancer Group fascinated by what “TC” had to say. Photo / Dave Murdoch
Many of the 30 members of the Dannevirke Men’s Cancer Group fascinated by what “TC” had to say. Photo / Dave Murdoch
A Palmerston North pathologist delivered a message to the Dannevirke Men’s Cancer Support Group: “We still don’t know how cancer operates”.
Dr Cynric Temple-Camp has built a huge reputation for his work investigating causes of death and illness, particularly in providing clinical evidence in the trial of Mark Lundy,found guilty of murdering his wife and daughter in Palmerston North in 2000.
Dr Cynric Temple-Camp speaking about cancer and past cases in the courts. Photo / Dave Murdoch
He was also involved in the investigation of Ewen McDonald into the killing of Feilding farmer Scott Guy in 2010. McDonald was ultimately acquitted.
Support group organiser Peter Noble-Campbell was delighted when Temple-Camp accepted an invitation to speak to his group at Tararua Reap earlier this month and numbers soared to over 30 for the talk.
Temple-Camp - or CT, as he prefers to be called, first chose to talk about his job diagnosing different forms of cancer, saying it was often very difficult to detect cancer, which can evolve from the smallest tumour, and equally difficult to predict how the treatment will work as every patient is unique.
As to why people contract cancer he said it might be part genetic and part environmental, but was often just bad luck.
He quoted a number of cases where patients should not have survived but did and others where the patient should not have died.
One piece of advice he promoted strongly was if a person feels something is not right they need to be persistent in seeking help, even though doctors are scarce.
Asked about the doctor shortage, he said he came with a lot of South African and Zimbabwe doctors seeking a new life and a similar flood escaping war in Sri Lanka in the 1980-90s which set New Zealand up for 25 years, but these days the country is not training enough new doctors and making it hard for overseas trained migrants to register.
Encouraged to talk about his experience in the courtroom as an expert witness, he said a trial does not always get the right verdict because lawyers get to choose what evidence is presented and they are not the experts in pathology.
Temple-Camp has written several very popular books on cases drawn from his 30 years of experience, the first entitled: The Cause Of Death and its sequel The Quick And The Dead, with another set to be released next year The Final Diagnosis.
Lynley Densham on behalf of the Tararua REAP staff accepts flowers from Peter Noble-Campbell as thanks for the wonderful care REAP takes of the Men’s Cancer Support Group. Photo / Dave Murdoch
The Dannevirke Men’s Cancer Group was fascinated with their guest speaker and is also looking forward to next month’s adventure being guided around Te Ahu a Turanga the Manawatu-Tararua Highway.
