U.S.News & World Report's Bernadine Healy, M.D., Will Be a Panelist on Upcoming PBS Special, The Truth About Cancer
Washington D.C. -- U.S.News & World Report’s health editor, Bernadine Healy, M.D., will be a featured panelist on an upcoming PBS special titled The Truth About Cancer, which premieres nationally Wednesday, April 16, at 9 p.m. ET (check local listings). The 30-minute panel discussion with Dr. Healy will follow a 90-minute documentary about cancer written, produced, and directed by award-winning filmmaker Linda Garmon. The full two-hour broadcast event takes a deep look inside the cancer field gauging how far we have come in this decades-old war and asking, "Why does anyone still die of cancer?"
Part science, part personal catharsis, part character-driven storytelling, The Truth About Cancer is narrated by Garmon, who tells the moving story of her husband’s battle with cancer. Over the course of the film, Garmon returns to the same Boston-area hospitals at which her husband was treated, and exposes startling truths about survival rates of metastisized cancers, and the limited success of drugs and clinical trials. Interwoven throughout are the stories of three additional cancer patients, and their families and doctors, as they navigate the deeply personal decisions surrounding the disease. The documentary also follows several medical professionals working to promote screening, research the latest developments in cancer treatment, and help patients and their families live with a cancer diagnosis.
“This film makes it clear that it’s very much a part of American culture to believe that if you fight hard enough, you can beat cancer. But when it comes to having metastatic cancer, your survival depends on the biology of your cancer cells, and whether they are susceptible to state-of-the-art treatment,” says Garmon. “In sharing my husband’s story and the stories of other patients, I hope to shed light on this important truth.”
The Truth About Cancer is the third installment of PBS’s Take One Step—a campaign offering primetime programming and outreach tools to help people take the first step towards better health. Following the 90-minute documentary is a 30-minute panel discussion entitled Take One Step: A Conversation About Cancer with Linda Ellerbee. News journalist and breast cancer survivor Linda Ellerbee moderates the dialogue featuring a panel of doctors, all of whom are cancer survivors themselves. Having sat on both sides of a cancer diagnosis, the panel shares their unique perspectives, offering both personal and professional observations on how to handle a cancer diagnosis, what to say to loved ones, how to advocate for yourself, and how to best live your life, with cancer. In addition to Dr. Healy, panelists include breast cancer surgeon and Breast Cancer Research stamp mastermind Dr. Ernie Bodai; neurologist and leading palliative care expert Dr. Richard Payne; and counseling psychologist Dr. Paul Brenner.
More information about living with cancer and a list of pertinent local resources will be available at www.pbs.org/takeonestep/cancer in April. Following its broadcast premiere, the complete two-hour special will be made available, free of charge, on the web site.
The Truth About Cancer is a Carousel Films LLC Production for WGBH Boston. Laurie Donnelly is Executive Producer for WGBH. Funding for The Truth About Cancer is provided by Susan G. Komen For The Cure and the John Wayne Cancer Foundation. Additional funding is provided by the Corporation for Public Broadcasting and public television viewers.
About Bernadine Healy, M.D.
Bernadine Healy, M.D., is U.S.News & World Report’s health editor and author of the magazine’s On Health column. A cardiologist by training and author of two books, she is the former head of the National Institutes of Health, the American Red Cross, and the College of Medicine and Public Health at Ohio State University. In her most recent book, Living Time: Faith and Facts to Transform Your Cancer Journey (2007), Healy shares the insights that transformed her own struggle with a deadly cancer more than seven years ago, afirming her identity as a patient and doctor with the many who share this journey. Since 2001, she has been a member of the President's Council of Advisors on Science and Technology as a bioterrorism expert. Healy is a frequent public speaker at forums and on air about the country’s most crucial health issues. For full biography of Healy, click here.
About WGBH Boston
WGBH Boston is America’s preeminent public broadcasting producer, the source of one-third of PBS’s primetime lineup and companion online content as well as many public radio favorites. WGBH is a pioneer in educational multimedia (including the Web, broadband, and interactive television) and in technologies and services that make media accessible for people with disabilities. WGBH has been recognized with hundreds of honors: Emmys, Peabodys, DuPont-Columbia Awards-even two Oscars. In 2002, WGBH was honored with a special institutional Peabody Award for fifty years of excellence. For more information, visit wgbh.org.
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