‘There’s always something to learn,’ and other lessons from a breast surgery oncologist

Born in Nigeria and raised in both Canada and Connecticut, Olutayo Sogunro, DO, MS, is a breast surgeon at Johns Hopkins Hospital and Johns Hopkins Howard County Medical Center. Dr. Sogunro’s clinical focus is breast surgical oncology. She says the whole-person care model is vitally important for patients with breast cancer. She is also interested in health literacy, breast cancer screening education and successful survivorship plans.

Below is an edited conversation from her recent appearance on the DO or Do Not podcast.

What is a breast surgeon and what is your scope of treatment?

A breast surgeon is someone who takes care of breast disease. I’m a breast surgical oncologist. The majority of my practice consists of breast patients, and within that practice, the majority of those patients are breast cancer patients. These are patients who’ve been diagnosed with breast cancer of all stages, or patients who have high-risk breast lesions. These patients don’t necessarily have breast cancer, but the lesions or other breast disease may become cancer in the future.

How do you manage high-risk patients, such as those with BReast CAncer (BRCA) genes?

Most breast cancer centers or clinics like ours have a high-risk program. These patients are high-risk for life and will need regular high-risk screenings. We work with these patients in our high-risk breast clinic.

For example, if a patient is diagnosed with a particular genetic mutation, a germline mutation like BRCA1 or BRCA2, as well as many other genetic mutations we have identified, those individuals would begin their high-risk screenings at age 25. Oftentimes, these patients begin with a breast MRI, and an annual mammogram is added to that at age 30. Those patients often have both an MRI and a mammogram each year, as part of the high-risk screening protocol as managed in a cancer program like ours.

Why should medical residents consider becoming a breast cancer specialist or completing a breast fellowship? Are those areas competitive?

Surgery in general is relatively competitive. But keep in mind that this is something that you’re going to be doing for the majority of your life. Most of our lives are spent working, so if you’re going to be working anyway, it needs to be something that you’re going to love.

For me, particularly with breast cancer surgery or breast surgical oncology, I love the oncology aspect with the surgery aspect. I am able to develop long-term relationships with my patients, because cancer is not just a “one and done.” It’s a lifetime of disease management. I’m going to be working on diagnosing the patient and performing their surgery, but I’m also invited in the aftercare and in the long-term management, or what we call survivorship.

Being integral in their care throughout the whole process is really important to me. I get to be with them when they first hear their diagnosis, which is often accompanied by tears, sadness and emotional baggage. I’m also seeing them a year or two later, and they have new hair, new chest, new breasts. They’re entirely different people. Getting to see that evolution of patients is beautiful to me.

What does a typical work week look like?

A typical work week for a breast surgeon involves a mixture of clinic and the operating room. Generally, our weeks are broken up into about 50% OR and 50% clinic, which is a lot more time in surgery than a lot of other surgical specialties.

Is breast surgery heavy on emergencies or call?

We do have a call schedule, but for the most part, there aren’t many emergencies in breast, as you can imagine. The biggest emergency we would typically face is post-operative, like hematoma.

How do you deliver bad news?

There’s no such thing as being good at giving bad news. Every situation is very different. Even if it’s the same diagnosis and the same treatment options, it’s still being given to a different patient.

There’s bad news in an acute setting, and then there’s bad news in a chronic setting. Neither of them are easy. I try to avoid information overload; I don’t like to give definitive numbers. The worst thing that you can do as a physician is say to someone, “You have six months to live.” We can give general numbers, and we can say the prognosis is X, or the survival rate is Y.

I prefer to break down the news in something that’s factual and palatable but also be soft while doing it. Unfortunately, there’s no great way to do it. The key thing to take away is to be objective and listen to the patient; listen to what their concerns are and see if you can help ameliorate some of those concerns by giving them factual numbers and giving them data to work with rather than conjecture. That’s the best way.

How do you handle complications and stress?

We’re all human, and we have to remember that, at the end of the day, not only are some things out of our control, but some things are bound to happen. One of the best pieces of advice I received when I was in residency was that you need to do your best, and accept that sometimes your best isn’t enough, but it has nothing to do with what you did. It’s easy for us to take those complications very personally, and you shouldn’t do that and doubt your choices.

When did you decide you wanted to go into medicine? When did you find out about osteopathic medical school?

I have wanted to be a doctor since I was 8 years old. I’ve always loved working with my hands and I loved science.

While I was applying to allopathic schools, my friend Theresa had just begun at an osteopathic school. She literally could not stop talking about being a DO! She told me I had to look into it, but I didn’t even know what a DO was. Theresa suggested I shadow a DO and after doing so, I knew that osteopathic medicine was what I was supposed to do. I still thank my friend Theresa to this day.

Do you think being a DO limits leadership opportunities (chair/chief)?

Not necessarily. I don’t think that being a DO should be seen as a lesser profession or as a lesser title. I think people are born DOs. Let me put it this way: there are certain aspects of being a DO that just make you a DO in terms of the way that we see patients, the way that we see health and the way that we think of the body as a unit.

At the end of the day, it’s how you show up. If you’re a good doctor, you’re a good doctor, regardless of the letters behind your name. I’m the fellowship director for the breast surgical oncology fellowship at Johns Hopkins, and I’m a DO.

Some days I joke that I don’t even think people know that I’m a DO because I’m just a physician, I’m just a colleague, and that’s the way I look at things in life. The way that we show up is so important, and it’s equally important to not put limitations on yourself before you even start.

When I hear that question or have that conversation, I always say you can do whatever you want as a DO.

Can you share one piece of advice?

You always have something to learn. I was told this by an attending physician. They told me that there’s always something to learn, and even bad situations teach you lessons. Sometimes it’s not a lesson of what you should or should not do, but a lesson on who you want to be.

Related reading:

DO surgical oncologist specializes in caring for patients who have breast cancer

The DO Book Club, Jan. 2026: ‘Adversity and Courage: The Breast Center’