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.
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]
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