28 Apr 2021
Vet Anna Beber launched the initiative during lockdown to remind her peers to perform live-saving checks.
Anna Beber founded Vet Your Breasts after being diagnosed with breast cancer earlier this year.
Vet Anna Beber founded the Vet Your Breasts campaign after being diagnosed with the disease in 2020.
Miss Beber, from HeartVets in Gloucestershire, credits a poster at a swimming pool for “reminding” her to check her breasts and, subsequently, discovering a lump.
At the centre of the Vet Your Breasts campaign is a poster featuring the eight main early signs of breast cancer, as well as the direct message to the vet profession: “Vet your breasts whilst changing your scrubs – you could save your life”:
More than 1,000 posters and stickers are already displayed in practices across the UK, as well as some reaching as far as Canada, New Zealand and Puerto Rico.
Miss Beber’s aim is to get the posters in every single veterinary workplace as a reminder to her colleagues to spend a few minutes each month prioritising their health.
Miss Beber said: “Everyone who works in or around the veterinary profession will know what an incredibly busy and fast-paced profession it is, with very little time to pause. We are notoriously terrible at putting ourselves first.
“I just basically want as many men and women as possible to be given the opportunity to consider what is normal for them and, if something has changed, to get checked out.”
Vet Your Breasts also released a video featuring Miss Beber and five other veterinary professionals affected by breast cancer, sharing their experience and urging colleagues to check themselves regularly:
