Dr. Jennifer D. Son is a first-generation surgeon. She was born in Brooklyn, New York, to Guatemalan parents. Her father was an internal medicine physician in Guatemala and came to the U.S. due to civil unrest. Dr. Son went to Vassar College in Poughkeepsie, New York, and knew in her bones that medicine was the career for her. She attended medical school at Boston University and quickly learned that she needed to be an advocate for patients. She completed her general surgery residency at Rush University in Chicago and then completed her breast surgical oncology fellowship at the University of California, San Francisco.
She is currently a practicing breast surgical oncologist in the DC area. Breast cancer is one of the most curable cancers that impacts women and she loves her patients, the science, the surgical technique, and teaching future generations of surgery. She is an advocate for women’s health and believes in educating and empowering patients to make the best decision for themselves. She truly loves what she does.
During her training, she never saw surgeons who looked like her. Women make up about 36 percent of the physician workforce and the surgical specialties are still predominantly male with only 22 percent of general surgeons being women. Now, Dr. Son is a mother of two young girls, and she wants to inspire them and make sure they know that the world is full of possibilities. If you can dream it, you can be it.
