Eleanor Montague

Career

Montague received a bachelor's degree in biology from the University of Alabama and an MD from the Woman's Medical College of Pennsylvania in 1950. She met her husband, Meredith "Monty" Montague III, while working in the emergency room at Kings County Hospital Center; she overheard him saying that he would never marry a woman doctor. They became friends and then were married a few years later. She worked in Japan for two years while her husband was stationed at a MASH unit there.

Montague completed her residency in radiology at Columbia-Presbyterian Medical Center. In 1959, Montague joined the radiotherapy department at the University of Texas MD Anderson Cancer Center under an American Cancer Society fellowship. She was employed at MD Anderson from 1961 to 1983. In 1973, she became a radiotherapy professor. She retired in 1987.

Montague was a pioneer in breast cancer research and treatment. During the 1960s-70s, mastectomy was considered the only cure for breast cancer. Montague instead advocated for lumpectomy, a more moderate surgery, combined with radiation therapy to preserve breast function and appearance for patients with early-stage breast cancer. Following clinical trials and a treatment program that Montague initiated at Anderson, breast-conserving therapy became established practice in the United States. Montague also pioneered new radiation therapy techniques and approaches for patients with advanced breast cancer, paved the way for chemotherapy to become part of a multimodal treatment approach, and criticised the ongoing use of radical mastectomy.

An award in her name, the Eleanor Montague Distinguished Resident Award in Radiation Oncology, was created by the American Association for Women Radiologists.

She was a member of the board of directors for the American Cancer Society of Therapeutic Radiologists and of the executive of the American Radium Society. Montague served on the National Breast Cancer Task Force and with the National Surgical Adjuvant Breast Project.

Awards

• Janeway Medal by the American Radium Society in 1985
• Gold Medal of the Radiological Society of North America in 1986
• Marie Curie Recipient by the American Association for Women Radiologists in 1990
• Gold Medal for Distinguished and Extraordinary Service to the American Society for Therapeutic Radiology and Oncology in 1992
• Alumna Award of Achievement by the Medical College of Pennsylvania
• Distinguished Service Award and the Outstanding Achievement Award by the University of Texas MD Anderson Cancer Center
• Gilbert H. Fletcher Society Gold Medal for outstanding achievement in her field.