🖌Shan Fichter, BBC:

🔻 A young woman who, after developing cancer during her teenage years, found motivation to study medicine is now celebrating her graduation from university.

Ellie Waters-Barnes, at the age of 14, was diagnosed with one of the aggressive types of soft-tissue cancer, and doctors estimated her chance of survival at only 20%.

But the experience shaped her professional path and, as she said, gave her a special ability: to understand patients better than many doctors.

Now 25 years old, and still dealing with some physical difficulties, she has recently graduated from the University of Keele. She said her personal experience of going through the stages of treatment has helped her have a better understanding of what patients go through.

She said receiving news of her diagnosis reaching stage four “alveolar rhabdomyosarcoma” in September 2015 turned her life upside down.

📸BBC/ GettyImages/ PA / Ellie Waters-Barnes/ Keele University