Dr Fiona McDonald gained a first-class BA (Hons) medical sciences degree from Cambridge University in 1994, and in 1997 qualified from Barts and The London School of Medicine. She then completed her general medical training at St. Mary’s Hospital before specialising in oncology at The Royal Marsden NHS Foundation Trust and Guy's and St. Thomas’ NHS Foundation Trust.
Dr McDonald’s work and research has been recognised and awarded throughout her career. She was awarded the Frank Doyle Medal from the Royal College of Radiologists in 2002, and her research degree at The Institute of Cancer Research gained her the president's prize. This award recognised her research into individualised image-guided adaptive radiotherapy techniques for lung and bladder tumours, completed between 2008 and 2012, including implementation of lung stereotactic radiotherapy for early stage and oligometastatic lung tumours in 2009.
In 2012, Dr McDonald was appointed as a Consultant Clinical Oncologist at The Royal Marsden, where her research aims to improve outcomes by developing individualised approaches to lung radiotherapy through integration of novel functional imaging and targeted biological agents with advanced radiotherapy technologies. These techniques include stereotactic/CyberKnife radiotherapy, intensity-modulated and image-guided adaptive radiotherapy.
The Thoracic Radiotherapy Group at the ICR was set up by Dr McDonald in October 2015.