Susan Margaret Love (February 9, 1948 – July 2, 2023) was an American surgeon, a prominent advocate of preventive breast cancer research, and author.[1] She was regarded as one of the most respected women's health specialists in the United States.[2] Love is best known for pioneering work fueled by her criticism of the medical establishment's paternalistic treatment of women. She was an early advocate of cancer surgery that conserves as much breast tissue as possible. She also was among the first to sound the alarm on the risks of routine hormone replacement therapy (HRT) for menopausal women.
Love came out as lesbian early in her career, at a time when such a revelation could carry "grave professional and personal risks".[4] She later fought to expand the rights of same-sex couples as parents. In 1993, she and her partner Dr. Helen Cooksey made history by getting approval for the first joint adoption by a gay couple from the Massachusetts Supreme Judicial Court, a state that did not recognize same-sex marriage at the time.[4][7] The couple married in San Francisco in 2004.[4]
In 2012, Love announced that she was diagnosed with leukemia and would take a leave of absence to pursue chemotherapy treatment.[8] After a successful treatment, Love returned to work the following year,[9] but died from a recurrence of the disease on July 2, 2023, at the age of 75, at her home in Los Angeles.[4][10]
Love completed her surgical training at Boston's Beth Israel Hospital, and in 1988 was recruited to found the Faulkner Breast Center at Faulkner Hospital, with comprehensive care that allowed patients to see teams composed of radiation therapists, oncologists and surgeons. After leaving the Faulkner Hospital in Boston, Love was recruited to set up what later became the Revlon Breast Center at University of California, Los Angeles (UCLA) in 1992. A founder of the breast cancer advocacy movement in the early 1990s, she helped organize the National Breast Cancer Coalition (NBCC). She later served on the boards of the NBCC and the Young Survival Coalition. In 1996, she retired from the active practice of surgery to dedicate her time to finding the cause for breast cancer. According to The New York Times, Love sought "not so much to cure the disease as to vanquish it altogether by isolating its causes and pre-empting them at a cellular level".[4]
In 1998, Love earned a business degree from the Executive MBA program at UCLA's Anderson School. She was appointed by President Clinton to the National Cancer Advisory Board, a position she held from 1998 to 2004. She maintained a board position at the National Cancer Institute, and served as an Adjunct Professor of Surgery at UCLA.[11] Love was a clinical professor of surgery at the David Geffen School of Medicine at UCLA. Love also served as the Founder and Medical Director of the Dr. Susan Love Foundation for Breast Cancer Research, formerly titled The Santa Barbara Breast Cancer Institute. In 2020, Love became the Chief Visionary Officer.
Gage, Irene; Schnitt, Stuart J.; Nixon, Asa J.; Silver, Barbara; Recht, Abram; Troyan, Susan L.; Eberlein, Timothy; Love, Susan M.; Gelman, Rebecca; Harris, Jay R.; Connolly, James L. (November 1996). "Pathologic Margin Involvement and the Risk of Recurrence in Patients Treated with Breast-Conserving Therapy". Cancer. 78 (9): 1921–1928. doi:10.1002/(SICI)1097-0142(19961101)78:9<1921::AID-CNCR12>3.0.CO;2-#. PMID8909312. S2CID196388280.
^Gleick, Elizabeth. "Susan Love; A Surgeon Crusades Against Breast Cancer", People, July 25, 1994. Accessed September 3, 2015. "Born in Little Silver, N.J., the oldest of five children of Peggy and James Love, she moved to Puerto Rico when she was 13 after her father, a salesman for the Eaton machinery company, was transferred there."
