Five women waited on the ward, sitting up anxiously, stripped bare to their waist. This was on their surgeon’s orders, to save him time as they were examined by him ahead of their surgery that morning.
He led the way around the beds at The Royal Marsden Hospital with me, a trainee oncologist, bringing up the rear of the team.
This was the reality of breast cancer treatment in the 1970s when I began my career.
Did those women mind? Did they feel embarrassed, sitting half-naked with seven men around their bed? No one ever asked them, as far as I was aware.
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