“Di ciao!” she says smiling to her little girl in the pram, pointing to me. Constanza Ciaponi is in a hurry. It is 07.40 in the morning. He has to drop the little one off at daycare and grab the scalpel. She is one of 8,000 women among 40,000 male surgeons in Germany. Fortunately the hospital where he works, the Evangelical Clinic, a branch of the University Clinic of Cologne, is almost across the street. Petite, thin, fresh, she lightly but vigorously climbs the main entrance steps, “extends” a huge “good morning” right and left, goes first to her office, in the Endocrine Surgery department, gets the special magnifying glasses for her planned thyroid surgeries day, her cell phone “maybe they’ll pick me up from daycare” and with the same decisive step we enter the operating room of the hospital together.

A daily ritual with the change of clothes and shoes and the well-known green surgical dressing. Ready, she enters her “own” operating room and gives another generous “good morning” to the anesthetist, nurses and everyone present. She is in her own world, every day fighting for solutions to health problems affecting the thyroid, parathyroid and adrenal glands. One would say “feminine” diseases, often invisible, insidious, dangerous…

Unusual resume

“You can stand at this particular spot,” he tells me, “from here to there it’s a sterile area, the first surgery is a relatively minor operation, we’re going to remove the left lobe of the thyroid, there’s a suspicious nodule, we’re going to send him to follow up for biopsy”. One last look at the computer with the patient’s history, instructions to the assistant surgeon and the staff, and at precisely 08.17, elevated on a three-point stand for better supervision, she makes the first scalpel incision. Everything is logged. Constanza Chiaponi constantly gives instructions, even to me she explains every step of what she is doing, and most importantly, she constantly says “thank you” to all her collaborators. The second surgery is somewhat more demanding. Total thyroidectomy. But not for Chiaponi. He makes hundreds of these and more complex ones every year. A woman in a classically male-dominated profession managed with stubbornness, persistence, patience, personal sacrifices, reading but also a human face to gain respect, recognition, appreciation. Constanza Chiaponi does not have an ordinary CV.

“I come from a family of doctors, both gynaecologists, my parents worked all day, I always saw them in the evening and they gave me a report, I found it fascinating. When I graduated I didn’t realize what I wanted to do with my life and I studied Literature and Philosophy at the Scuola Normale Superiore in Pisa. But during studies I realized that I wanted to be a doctor. And after I got my degree I studied medicine in Germany, in Munich. The first time I was in the operating room during my internship (Famulatur), I knew I was going to be a surgeon, that I was born for it, because it is a very exciting profession and also a profession that gives you the opportunity to offer a quick solution.”

Perched on the three-point chair, Chiappone moves the huge projector over the operating table to get a better view. The thyroid gland is swollen and must be removed properly through the small incision in the neck. Continuously through a special monitoring device, he is careful during the removal not to disturb the laryngeal nerves that control the voice. Then he comes and shows me the thyroid. For any patient who wishes, Constanza Chiapone also performs an innovative operation without an incision in the skin and unsightly scars, the so-called endoscopic transoral thyroidectomy, which is also applied to parathyroid removal.

“They see you so little, I hope they know you’re their mom”

Professor Constanza Chiapone, Fellow of the European Board of Surgery, a qualification that requires special experience in endocrinological surgery, is an authority in her field. “I believe that women can do exactly what men do, except for certain limitations, such as physical strength,” she tells me after the surgeries. “But certainly in society there is still this image of the surgical man, as the head of the family, with a wife at home, who prepares everything, picks up the children from the station. And sometimes we experience this with patients as well. A few weeks ago I had an elderly patient who came to me with a sick parathyroid and said he wanted to see the professor who operates. And I told him that I am the professor and he was surprised. I operated on him and he was very happy.” The Italian surgeon has other interesting experiences to tell from the German reality.

“Experience has shown me that women do not trust women. I’ve had a patient cancel an operation because she was afraid I’d catch something from my children or I wouldn’t have a place to leave them. But apart from the fact that I have years of getting sick, I always found a solution, either at grandma’s or elsewhere. You know, 20, 30 years ago it was different, now society is changing, 70% of medical students are women, at some point the correlation will change. I often hear many German women say to me, ah, the poor children, they must be in daycare all day, they see you so little, I hope they know you are their mom. People have the image of the mom who has to be with the child 24 hours a day. I don’t think that’s right, I didn’t experience that in Italy. Young women sometimes feel guilty because they absolutely must stay at home for the first year of their child’s life. I can tell you about colleagues, who stayed home for a year because they thought they had to, then got depressed. I didn’t do that, I took a few weeks maternity leave but then went back to work. My mother would bring my child to me to nurse between surgeries, I knew she was in good hands. I also needed it because I am not just a mother, but also a surgeon. I have absolutely no guilt. I did what was right for me. I’m not saying it’s right for every woman. Everyone has to find their own way. For me, this path was the right one.”

“I discover my mother in me”

Constanza Chiaponi has her life, private and professional “under absolute control”. Like her mother, from whom she “inherited” self-confidence and love for her work. Even to this day, he remains her absolute role model. “As a child I always saw how she had everything under control, how she managed it with the greatest experience and dedication to her work. My mom always worked, not 100, but 150%. And she still works at her practice, even though she’s retired. I really appreciate it because I love it when people love their work. And my mother really loved this job, being a gynecologist. I do the same and I definitely think that sometimes I rediscover my mother in a statement or in my behavior. This is very good”.

But it is also good for her patients. “Being a surgeon is also a certain way of life. You are a surgeon outside the hospital. They are specific elements of the character, it is a specific worldview, it is a specific way of approaching things, the unexpected. You go into surgery and you don’t know what’s going to happen, if you can 100% help people. So I think it’s really that willingness to face the unexpected, and also the faith, the belief that you can do it well.”

A female approach to one of the most difficult and responsible professions in the world? Perhaps, but in addition to being a woman, Constanza Ciaponi is strongly Italian. Her temperament has a “therapeutic” effect and I tell her this openly. “Thank you, this immediacy is characteristic of a southern European. As a foreigner in Germany I often find that people here are more willing to complain than to praise. It’s a shame because both are needed.” Noon. With the same freshness, Chiaponi takes off the green surgical clothes, dresses as a “mom” and goes to pick up her daughter from daycare. Surgeon, wife, mom, life roles…