Born: 28 April 1911, Canada
Died: 1 October 1993
Country most active: Canada
Also known as: Mildred Vera Peters
Canadian oncologist and clinical investigator Dr Mildred Vera Peters was told to “go do women’s work” after upstaging the medical community in her treatment of Hodgkin’s disease. So she revolutionized breast cancer treatment through years of painstaking, meticulous work.
Peters earned her medical degree from the University of Toronto in 1934. In 1950 she published a revolutionary paper demonstrating for the first time that many patients with early Hodgkin’s disease, which at the time was considered incurable, could be completely cured if given high-dose radiation. She went on to study the use of radiation therapy in the treatment of breast cancer, and her research showed that breast-conserving surgery (lumpectomy) followed by radiation was just as effective as a radical mastectomy, which had a major impact on the lives of the many women with breast cancer.
Peters’ original research was met with skepticism by the medical establishment in the 1950s and she stated in an interview that it took more than 10 years for her findings to be accepted.
In recognition of her work, Peters was awarded two honorary doctorates (from York University in 1975 and Queen’s University in 1983) and in 1979 received a gold medal from the American Society for Therapeutic Radiology and Oncology and a Medaille Antoine Beclere. In 1988 she was named a Woman of Distinction by the Canadian Breast Cancer Foundation. She was made a Member of the Order of Canada in 1975, raised to Officer in 1977, and was posthumously inducted into the Canadian Medical Hall of Fame in 2010.