S. Eva Singletary

Sonja Eva Singletary (December 23, 1952 – July 29, 2015) was an American surgeon who specialized in the care of breast cancer. She was a faculty member at the University of Texas MD Anderson Cancer Center and a past president of the Society of Surgical Oncology.

Biography

Singletary was born near Florence, South Carolina, to Joe and Agnes Singletary. Her father had met her mother, a native of Estonia, in Germany during World War II. Singletary grew up on a farm and later attended Clemson University, graduating in two years with a perfect grade point average. She earned a medical degree from the Medical University of South Carolina. After training in general surgery at the University of Florida College of Medicine,^[1]

Singletary completed a fellowship in surgical oncology at the University of Texas MD Anderson Cancer Center.^[2] Singletary stayed at MD Anderson as a faculty member, later serving as chief of the melanoma surgery and breast surgery sections. Her interest in breast cancer was influenced by MD Anderson radiation oncologist Eleanor Montague.^[2]

In 1992, the President's Cancer Panel appointed her to a special committee that examined the state of breast cancer treatment and research.^[3] Singletary created patient education materials, including the DVD Moving Beyond Breast Cancer.^[4]

For more than ten years, Singletary was the editor-in-chief of Breast Diseases: A Yearbook Quarterly.^[1] She was a section editor of the Annals of Surgical Oncology.^[3] In 1996, she was inducted into the Texas Women's Hall of Fame.^[5] In 2002, Singletary received a Distinguished Alumnus Award from the Medical University of South Carolina.^[6] She was the 2004–05 president of the Society of Surgical Oncology, and she was the first woman to hold that post.^[7] She died in Houston in 2015.^[3][2]