Briony Bishop, a consultant breast radiographer at the Royal Marsden Hospital in London, loves her career—but the upward climb to her dream job came hand-in-hand with her mom’s health demise.
“As my mum fought against breast cancer, I decided I wanted to spend my life seeking it out in others,” Bishop wrote in the Guardian.
Bishop said her mother had an inspiring way of talking about her treatment—“matter-of-fact, at times brutally honest but always reassuring”—that in turn influenced her attitude about the illness. She wrote that her mom’s strength, which continued until her death in 2015, pushed her to become that person for others struggling with their diagnosis.
Eighteen months after her mother’s death, Bishop snagged her dream job as a consultant radiographer at the Royal Marsden.
“Every day I meet patients like my mum and families just like my sister and me,” she wrote. “Thanks to my mum’s direct approach, I’m not scared to talk to people about how they’re feeling, and I try to reassure them the way she did me. I can see they’re anxious, and like everyone at the Royal Marsden, I do my best to ensure they have the very best care possible.”
Read Bishop’s full essay on the Guardian site:
After graduating from Indiana University-Bloomington with a bachelor’s in journalism, Anicka joined TriMed’s Chicago team in 2017 covering cardiology. Close to her heart is long-form journalism, Pilot G-2 pens, dark chocolate and her dog Harper Lee.