Miriam Mutebi, Breast Surgical Oncologist and Assistant Professor in the Department of Surgery at the Aga Khan University Hospital, shared on X:
“I did everything I was supposed to do. How did this happen to me?
Martha was 32. Breastfeeding. No risk factors.
The textbooks said she shouldn’t have been there.
She was not an anomaly.
I had no answer for her that felt honest enough; the absence of which changed how I saw everything that followed.
Medical school had taught me that breast cancer was an older woman’s disease. I had memorised the risk factors, recited them without hesitation, and walked into my first breast clinic rotation fully expecting to see women who matched the profile.
Martha was not that woman. And she was not an anomaly either. Patient after patient in that clinic defied everything I had been taught.
They were coming in younger than expected. Breastfeeding. Multiple children. No family history. No traditional risk factors.
Then there were the delays.
- Patricia, told she was too young and sent home twice.
- Mary, reassured for six months that the change in her breast was probably a cyst.
- Ruth, told repeatedly that breast cancer did not cause pain, and therefore no further evaluation was needed.
Each reassurance delivered with confidence. Each one WRONG.
The textbooks were describing one population. The clinic was showing me another. And the cost of that mismatch was being paid entirely by the patients.
That gap is part of why I wrote Stuff Id Tell My Sister.
Have you or someone you love ever been dismissed when something felt wrong?”
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