“I have a family history of breast cancer so it’s wonderful to be working in a profession that’s been proven to make an impact on breast cancer mortality.”

There is a history of breast cancer in my family. My personal history with breast cancer inspired me to work in the field. My mother was treated by my department before I started working here, and it’s a privilege to work alongside the team that played such a huge role in her treatment and recovery.

I first saw a job for a trainee assistant practitioner in Colchester's breast unit back in 2018 but I trained at St Georges Hospital in London and The Jarvis Centre in Guildford. After my training, which took about nine months, I fell in love with the profession immediately and knew that breast imaging services was where I wanted to work. I was very lucky that my employer supported by changing my contract so I could go to university to train as a diagnostic radiographer. I was 25 at the time.

I graduated in September 2022, and started my postgraduate certificate in mammography in November 2022. By March 2023, I was qualified mammographer. My colleagues have always been a huge inspiration to me and I’m very lucky to work in a department with mammographers who are always willing to share their knowledge and experience. It’s wonderful to be now working in a profession that’s proven to make an impact on saving the lives of people diagnosed with breast cancer.

What I do in a day depends on where I’m working I might be in a mobile unit where we’ll see around 50 clients for routine screening appointments.

If I’m working at the hospital, we might be running a Rapid Diagnostic clinic for people who have been referred from their GP due to them having symptoms. We also run clinics for people who need to be rescreened, have a family history of breast cancer or are at high risk.

I think there's a misconception that mammography can be monotonous, but this is not the case. Every day is different, and I get to meet some amazing, inspiring people. We’re also given lots of opportunity to continue our professional development and advance our practice

You can go to straight to university to study for a radiography degree but you many also want to think about getting a level 4 qualification like I did as an assistant practitioner. Not only did it get me to university, but it also gave me a solid clinical background and led to my postgrad.

In the future, I’d love to work as an interventional mammographer, this is an additional post-graduate training course on top of the postgraduate certificate we already hold which allows radiographers to undertake x-ray-guided interventional procedures such as biopsies using our mammography equipment, it’s such a good way of advancing our clinical practice! The ultimate goal is to get a master's degree in mammography.

Anyone interested in mammography I would absolutely encourage to pursue it. Our job has a direct impact on breast cancer mortality which is an absolute privilege to be a part of! We use some of the newest and most advanced technology such as 3D mammograms and contrast mammography. We also get the opportunity to travel to conferences. I visited a conference in Glasgow earlier this year, and network with some of the most knowledgeable breast practitioners in the UK

One of the great things about my job is that we don’t tend to work anti-social hours, such as a night shifts and weekends, so we get to maintain a healthy work-life balance easily.