Like many Australians, respected Queensland breast surgeon Associate Professor Rhea Liang has shed a quiet tear over the bushfire crisis.

But her private reflection turned to outrage when a workplace colleague asked if she was crying because she was ‘on her period’.

Venting her spleen about the “git” on Twitter, Professor Liang, from the Gold Coast Hospital and Health Service, wrote:

So I’m on my Twitter during a break, having a quiet cry about a baby that can’t be airlifted and a pharmacist still working despite losing his home in #AustraliaBushfires, and someone in the workplace asks me if I’m on my period.