What is a clip? It’s a tiny (really tiny, smaller than a pinhead) piece of metal, usually stainless steel or titanium, inserted to mark the spot where breast tissue was sampled.

A clip has a very good reason for being there. It marks the exact spot from which the tissue was taken so that on future mammograms or surgery, the area in question will be easy to locate and reassess.

When some women learn they have a clip inside their breast they imagine it will set off airport metal detectors; they believe they can feel it and that it actually hurts; think they are allergic to it; and have other such ideas. The fact is, if you’ve ever had any operation, you have clips in you somewhere. Abdominal surgery can result in as many as 200 clips! Those clips, much larger than clips in the breast, are used to stop bleeding or reconnect tissue.

If you've had a breast biopsy and a clip was inserted, your doctor did you a favor and followed standard protocol. Don't ask another doctor to remove it! A clip serves a good purpose and will do you no harm.