The surgeons Chris Cartlidge and Lucy Khan Chris I’m a consultant oncoplastic breast surgeon, working in the NHS with my colleague Lucy, who happens to be my wife. Individually, we both operate to remove cancers, and on reconstructions. We join forces together on particularly complex cases where two pairs of hands are needed, or on bilateral operations: as a team, we can reconstruct a breast each concurrently, rapidly increasing the speed by which our patients can undergo treatment.
After a mastectomy, there can often be years-long waits for reconstruction referrals. When possible, we combine both. For patients, the benefits are massive.
We’ve been married for 16 years, although we’ve known each other since high school in Glasgow. We both wanted to study medicine, but had no plan to do so together. Lucy got an offer from Oxford, on condition she deferred a year.
I had an offer from Cambridge, but didn’t get the grades. We both ended up studying medicine in Edinburgh, and both landed on breast surgery. You can teach most people to be a surgeon, save a small percentage who don’t have the dexterity.
But there’s only a tiny group who are naturally gifted. That’s Lucy. One of my early mentors said to me once: “It was smart, Chris, to marry the competition.
” We started as consultants here in Scotland five years ago. As trainees, you rarely cross paths. It’s only now that we have the chance to work together.
Lots of surgeons work collaboratively, but being husban.
