Dr Gudgeon qualified in Birmingham England in 1968. After house jobs in Birmingham she worked in the anaesthetic department in Bulawayo, Zimbabwe as a registrar for three years.

On moving to Cape Town she worked in the Department of Radiation Oncology (LE33) at Groote Schuur Hospital for twenty one years; first as a senior, then principal medical officer. During that time she worked exclusively with the breast cancer patients and was a founder member of the Groote Schuur Hospital Breast Clinic where she ran the outpatient biopsy clinic. Whilst there, she was part of the International Breast Cancer Study Group and was a co –investigator of the many breast cancer clinical trials that were undertaken in the unit.

She has authored and co-authored over 50 publications on breast diseases and given both oral and poster presentations at national and international congresses.

She is an honorary member of SASCRO (South African Society of Clinical and Radiation Oncologists) and a member of the SAOC (South African Oncology Consortium) which aims to help provide evidence based medicine to aid patient funding by medical aids.

In 1994 she founded a fledgling private practice (not taking on any new patients) which she has built up over the years to cover the spectrum of benign and malignant breast disease.