Today, Hammerton works two days a week in private practice and spends the rest of her time as programme lead for physiotherapy at Sheffield Hallam University, where she helps train the next generation of physiotherapists.
After all, physiotherapy has made significant advances in the recent past: since 1977, it has enjoyed clinical autonomy and been able to take direct patient referrals; in 2002, the first consultant physiotherapist was appointed; and in 2013, physiotherapists won independent prescribing rights.
But in another sense, she told her fellow physiotherapists, there was the prospect of it "sleepwalking into obscurity" and of allowing the profession to "wither and die".
Such studies show why the profession claims that for every £1 spent on physiotherapists, the return on the investment is £1.50.
I have wanted to be a physiotherapist ever since I suffered with several rugby injuries at school, I would regularly speak with physiotherapists and they always seemed to enjoy their job.
About 80% of disabled people, including 150 million children, live in developing countries Chance for Childhood aims to set up communication camps in the months ahead, using speech therapists and physiotherapists to teach people how to communicate with disabled children.
I am looking forward to meeting the NHS physiotherapists in post-op.
My mother, who is 10 years post-mastectomy on the same breast, has warned me that rehabilitation physiotherapists are uncompromising, but necessarily so.
"It's really important that students understand what physiotherapists do," says Hammerton.
I start to look for physiotherapists who are experienced in post-mastectomy rehabilitation and sport.
Just because we have sorted out a sprained ankle, that might not be the end of the story - if a person is frail or elderly, they may need support at home, and we can work on that with our team of occupational and physiotherapists.
