Less Radical

When a colleague’s misconduct is discovered, Fisher is forced to resign from the NSABP and becomes the subject of a Congressional investigation. As the walls close in, Fisher fights back. He spends the rest of his life trying to restore his reputation.

We return to Washington, D.C. In the fall of 1974, the results of Bernie’s clinical trials promise to change the treatment of breast cancer forever... if only it were that easy.

In 1958, Bernie Fisher participated in the first randomized clinical trial in patients with breast cancer. The trial was a disaster, leading most surgeons to abandon the idea of using chemotherapy to cure more patients. Bernie, however, noticed something different. This put him on a path that would change the course of cancer treatment forever.

For most of history, the voices of women with breast cancer have been silent, including the daughter of an American president. Fifty years ago, they began to speak.

While Bernie Fisher worked to change doctor’s minds, women demanded input into their care. Those whose lives are impacted by cancer continue to influence how doctors, including me, approach our patients and your treatment.

At the end of the 19th century, a New York surgeon determined that the only way to cure breast cancer was with radical surgery. For the next hundred years, millions of breast cancer survivors bore the mark of his disfiguring approach.

Our story begins exactly fifty years ago. On a fall weekend in late September 1974, a former dancer from Michigan and a young surgeon from Pittsburgh met just outside Washington, DC. The treatment of breast cancer would never be the same.

Introducing Less Radical, the true story of Dr. Bernie Fisher, the surgeon-scientist who revolutionized the way we treat breast cancer. After generations of surgeons subjecting women to brutal, disfiguring surgeries, Bernie found a better way. And the thanks he got? A performative, misguided Congressional hearing that destroyed his reputation and haunted him until his death.

Over six episodes, radiation oncologist Dr. Stacy Wentworth will take you into operating rooms, through the halls of Congress, and into the labs where breakthrough cancer treatments were not only developed, but discovered.

The first episode of Less Radical debuts September 25.