Hi Louise
Firstly thank you for keeping this subject alive. I haven't been on bcna for some time and went through some of your posts and your question on when or if you were offered reconstruction at the same time as mastectomy is helping keep the subject matter alive.
I've written to hospitals, doctors, I've written to plastic surgeon society's, media outlets, journalists etc and have been met with the same sort of response. No one knows what the answer is to this problem.
Breast cancer oncologists - cannot advertise what they can do as it is frowned upon in the surgical world and obviously there are many cases where immediate reconstruction is not an option. Some oncologist are very established and successful surgeons but they are not trained in certain types of surgery and do not work directly with a plastic surgeon. Eg skin sparing mastectomy
Plastic surgeons - it's really in the hands of the oncologist surgeons to educate the gp's. They hold conferences and provide information but it is a limited audience. It doesn't cover everyone.
I'm at a point where I think I'm going to write and email to every GP I can find to ensure that they know about the types of options that are available at diagnosis.
Did the bcna update their information guide and include information on skin sparing and nipple sparing surgery options?
