Debating the Term: 'Cancer Survivor'
According to official estimates, nearly 10 million Americans alive today have survived cancer. Whether they all accept the label of "cancer survivor" is another matter. Meet people who lived with the disease and beat it — and hear how they'd rather be described.
Guests:
Dr. Fitzhugh Mullan
*Professor of pediatrics and public health at George Washington University
*Contributing editor of the journal Health Affairs
*Diagnosed in 1975 with mediastinal seminoma and wrote about it in an essay in the New England Journal of Medicine (in which he first used the term "cancer survivor" to describe anyone diagnosed with the disease)
Musa Mayer
*Author of several books on breast cancer, most recently, After Breast Cancer: Answers to the Questions You're Afraid to Ask
*15-year breast cancer survivor and advocate
Julia Rowland, Ph.D.
*Director of the Office of Cancer Survivorship at the National Cancer Institute
*She's worked in the field of psycho-oncology for 25 years
Copyright © 2004 NPR. All rights reserved. Visit our website terms of use and permissions pages at www.npr.org for further information.
NPR transcripts are created on a rush deadline by an NPR contractor. This text may not be in its final form and may be updated or revised in the future. Accuracy and availability may vary. The authoritative record of NPR’s programming is the audio record.