Friday, December 18, 2015

A View from the Front

The Death of Cancer – After Fifty Years on the Frontlines of Medicine, a Pioneering Oncologist Reveals Why the War on Cancer is Winnable – and How We Can Get There – Vincent T. DeVita Jr, M.D. (Sarah Crichton Books)

It is a pretty safe bet to say that everyone has been impacted by cancer. A family member, a friend, a neighbor, or you personally have been diagnosed by cancer. The mere diagnosis can be devastating and often the treatment can be worse; decimating the body and the mind of the patient. Now imagine what it must be like to having to deliver that diagnosis and make it your life’s work to trying to defeat cancer.

You no longer have to imagine what that is like, because Dr. Vincent T. DeVita Jr offers up The Death of Cancer – After Fifty Years on the Frontlines of Medicine, a Pioneering Oncologist Reveals Why the War on Cancer is Winnable – and How We Can Get There. Dr. DeVita is a pioneer in the field of searching for a cure and treating the disease; along the way he partnered in the development of a combination chemotherapy protocol that put Hodgkins lymphoma patients disease into remission.
Signs that treatments have cancer on the run are all around us; survivals rates are up, many forms the disease that were once a death sentence are now treatable and yet the disease and the dread that accompanies it persist. DeVita spells out his take on the progress we have made in the fight and why he believes there are roadblocks in the way of further progress. DeVita makes the case for bold action in the face of scientists and physicians who are often restrained or timid when it comes to taking big risks that could offer big results.

Those who have been closely impacted by the disease will be inspired by DeVita’s desire and drive to deliver on the promise of the cure. Some, myself included, will be frustrated by DeVita’s descriptions of the of protective nature that some cradle their fiefdoms and the associated finances often at the expense of promising, bold, steps in the search for a cure.  

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