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Most sensible people would probably think twice about taking a slice of cake iced with a huge radioactivity sign. But not staff at the WIMM, who did just that in late December as they bid a fond farewell to Joy Bull, Deputy Senior Radiation Protection Officer at the Institute.

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Joy got her first job at the Radcliffe Infirmary in 1965, but it was whilst working at the Churchill Hospital a few years later that her interest in the medical use of radio isotopes was sparked. Since then, she has worked at some point or other on all of the hospital sites in Oxford on a wide variety of different diseases, including anaemia, lymphoma and coeliac disease.

Joy has always been actively involved in fund-raising activities, but when her son was treated at the John Radcliffe Hospital after being severely injured in a car accident in 2000, she felt the need to ‘pay it back somehow’ and has spear-headed fund-raising activities at the WIMM ever since. Soon after her son’s accident, Joy organized a series of events which raised over £5,000 to pay for a new hoist in the Trauma Unit at the hospital, which is known as ‘Adrian’s hoist’.

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Joy has worked at the WIMM ever since it opened in 1989, and her retirement in December (which she prefers to call the 3 R’s: ‘rejuvenation, revitalisation and reinvention’) was marked with a celebration at the Institute to which colleagues past and present were invited. The current Director, Doug Higgs, thanked Joy for all her hard work – and a toast was raised to a much-loved member of staff who will be greatly missed by all.