When it comes to screening or diagnostic workups for breast cancer in Denmark, Ilse Vejborg is the professional beacon everyone else must measure themselves against.

Ilse Vejborg was not the reason mammography screening exists in Denmark. The first programmes were introduced in the capital in 1991. But when a uniform nationwide screening programme was rolled out in 2007, offering biennial mammograms to women aged 50 to 69, she was the expert colleagues, civil servants and politicians alike turned to for advice.