Biography
Jennifer Rusby trained in medicine at the University of Oxford, winning the first prize for finals. After house jobs in Oxford and Birmingham, she proceeded to surgical training in Wessex.
Her research degree was undertaken at Massachusetts General Hospital, Boston, US, looking at the anatomy and pathology of the nipple with the aim of improving the decision-making and surgical approach to nipple-sparing mastectomy. This work was awarded an Arnott Lectureship from the Royal College of Surgeons of England and contributed to the global acceptance of nipple-sparing for women undergoing risk-reducing or therapeutic mastectomy. The impact of the nipple on aesthetic outcome and patient satisfaction is substantial.
On her return to the UK, Jennifer was an Oncoplastic Surgery Fellow in Birmingham, then Oncoplastic Fellow at the ICR’s partner hospital, The Royal Marsden NHS Foundation Trust. She is now a Consultant Oncoplastic Breast Surgeon there. In addition to nipple-sparing mastectomy, her clinical interests include oncoplastic breast conserving surgery and the management of the axilla. She was the lead clinician for the Sutton Breast Multidisciplinary Team from 2010–2015.
Rusby has given lectures in the US, Denmark, France and the UK, and teaches on courses at the Royal College of Surgeons. In 2015–16, she was one of the first cohort of Royal College of Surgeons’s Lady Estelle Wolfson Emerging Leaders Fellows. She is the Royal Marsden principal investigator for three national surgical trials and contributes to national collaborative audits. Her current research focuses on evaluating the outcome after breast cancer surgery.
Rusby gained the title of Reader at the ICR in 2019.