Under the Knife

Liz O’Riordan

Life lessons from the operating theatre

‘Lays bare the highs and lows of life as a lady surgeon. Riveting’ Cathy Rentzenbrink

Dr Liz O’Riordan is a breast cancer surgeon who has battled against social, physical and mental challenges to practise at the top of her field. Under the Knife charts her incredible highs – performing like a couture dressmaker as she moulded and reshaped women’s breasts, while saving their lives – and the heart-breaking lows of telling ten women a day they had cancer.

But this memoir is more than just an eye-opening look at the realities of training to be a female surgeon in a man’s world. In addition to this high-powered, high-pressured role, Liz faced her own breast cancer diagnosis, severe depression and suicidal thoughts, in tandem with commonplace sexual harassment and bullying.

By revealing how she coped when her life crashed around her, she demonstrates there is always hope.

‘Gave me a real insight into what it takes to become a surgeon, and how hard it is to be a breast cancer patient when you know far too much about it’ Jane Garvey

‘Liz O’Riordan takes us behind the scenes with the ruthless precision of someone who knows how to wield a scalpel and a pen. A real action-driven page-turner, the book also makes a thought-provoking contribution to the wider debate on how we look after our healthcare professionals’ Cathy Rentzenbrink

‘Liz opens herself up to us like a patient opened up on an operating table, shining a bright light onto what it is to be a human being who holds the fates of other human beings in their hands’ Greg Wise

‘With extraordinary candour, breast surgeon Liz O’Riordan reveals the emotional journey unleashed by her own diagnosis of breast cancer’ Dr Kathryn Mannix