Dr. Susan Love

Dr. Susan Love Speaker Biography

Susan M. Love, M.D. is an author, teacher, surgeon, researcher and activist. She graduated from SUNY Downstate Medical School cum laude in 1974. She did her surgical residency at Boston's Beth Israel Hospital and became chief resident in 1979. In 1980, she opened a private practice in general surgery as the first woman surgeon on the staff of Beth Israel. In 1982, she joined the staff of the Dana Farber Breast Evaluation Clinic, the first comprehensive multidisciplinary center for breast care. In 1988, she founded the Faulkner Breast Center in Boston, which has received national recognition and continues to combine patient care with a research program and fellowship in breast surgery.

In 1992, Dr. Love was recruited by UCLA to found a multidisciplinary, comprehensive program addressing all aspects of breast care. The Revlon/UCLA Breast Center, under her direction, developed the first comprehensive practice guidelines on breast disease. Within four years the Center was treating over 4,000 women a year and was designated one of the top ten hospitals for women by McCalls magazine.

In 1996, after twenty years of direct patient care, Dr. Susan Love left clinical practice to devote more time to her basic research and her growing interest in women's health as an Adjunct Professor of Surgery at UCLA. She received a $500,000 grant from the Department of Defense to develop an intraductal approach to breast cancer. This opportunity led her to found Pro-Duct Health, Inc, a medical device company where she serves as consultant and director. In addition, she recently graduated from the Executive MBA program at UCLA's Anderson School.

Dr. Love has been a leader in innovative approaches to the treatment of breast cancer, authoring many journal articles and co-authoring an Atlas of Surgical Techniques in Breast Surgery (Lippincott, 1995). In addition to her role in educating medical students and other health care providers at Harvard Medical School and then UCLA, she has always felt a mission to educate the public. As a result, she lectures extensively and appears in magazine interviews and on radio and television. Her book, Dr. Susan Love's Breast Book, has been called "one of the most important books in women's health in the last decade," and termed the bible for women with breast cancer by The New York Times. The second, fully revised edition was released in 1995 and another revised edition was published in September 2000. Released in 1997, Dr. Susan Love's Hormone Book, which spent seven weeks on the best-seller list, provides an equally authoritative range of information about menopause.

In her frustration at the lack of progress in breast cancer research, she helped found and currently directs the National Breast Cancer Coalition, a coalition of breast cancer advocacy groups formed to involve breast cancer patients and their supporters as advocates for action, advances and change. Through political action, this group has increased research funding for breast cancer from $90 million to $410 million in two years. Their 1993 petition drive led to the White House where Dr. Love helped to deliver two million signatures to President Clinton, demanding a National Action Plan for Breast Cancer. Love is one of the co-chairs of that plan bringing together women, scientists, business people and politicians in an unprecedented effort to stop this disease. She is also the Medical Director of the Susan Love MD Breast Cancer Foundation; a nonprofit organization dedicated to the eradication of breast cancer.

Although retired from the practice of surgery, she is still helping women through her recently launched website, which provides content, community, and personal guidance .