The Cancer Mavericks: A History of Survivorship

Knownst to Matthew Zachary, but unknownst to others, long before the Award-Winning documentary "The Cancer Mavericks: A History of Survivorship" hit podcast feeds, a pilot episode was storyboarded and produced to test the waters with our newly minted production team, helmed by acclaimed executive producer, Steve Lickteig. If all went to plan, we would proceed with the heavy lifting needed to bring this 320-hour, 8-episode history series to life. Suffice it to say, it indeed went to plan.

For this pilot episode, the chosen topic would center around a history of cancer throughout the last century's zeitgeist of mainstream film and television. The storyboarding around this pilot would ultimately lay the groundwork for what would become Episode 6 of the final series, titled "Caner Mavericks Goes To Hollywood."

So, who better to join host and narrator Matthew Zachary for this exploit of pop culture-meets-healthcare narrative than his mother, Roz Greenweig? A 30-year veteran educator within the NYC public school system (Kindergarten and First Grade,) Roz is also an ardent, veteran, encyclopedic cinephile who holds a Master's Degree in Film History and Film Studies with a concentration in Film Noir.

Together, Mother and Son wax poetic on the taboos, the trends, and the trajectory that the cancer narrative took over the past 100 years across scores of films and television series.

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Welcome to the series finale of The Cancer Mavericks. In this final episode, we reflect on the first seven episodes through the lens of history and progress with a series of insightful conversations featuring some of healthcare's most influential and visionary voices across the past four decades. If history is a teacher, we have learned that change can happen, albeit slowly. But it is only when the people stand up, organize and activate their voices demanding change, that the culture will shift, the institutions will pivot, and the very system itself will be forced by the will of the citizens to bend towards the arc of justice. Thank you for joining us for this groundbreaking series. If you like this series, please leave a review and a rating on your favorite podcast app. To learn more about The Cancer Mavericks, visit https://CancerMavericks.com. To learn more about OffScrip Health, visit https://OffScrip.com.

FEATURED VOICES

Gil Bashe

Chair Global Health and Purpose, FINN Partners

John D. Carpten, Ph.D.

President's Cancer Panel (Emeritus)

Director, Institute of Translational Genomics

Keck School of Medicine at USC

Deanna Darlington

President at Links2Equity

Kenny Kane

Young Adult Cancer Advocacy Pioneer

Co-Founder/CEO, Stupid Cancer (Former)

Margaret Laws

President and CEO, Hope Lab

Lisa C. Richardson, MD, MPH

Division Director, Cancer Prevention and Control at The CDC

Catharine Young, Ph.D.

Assistant Director of Cancer Moonshot Engagement and Policy

The White House

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A cancer diagnosis sucks no matter what — but factors like income, education, racism, geography, housing, and access to health care, known as "social determinants of health," can worsen the burden. When researchers zoom out from individual experiences and survey cancer survivors, they see patterns called social determinants of health. Individual circumstances such as economic stability, physical environment, racial bias, proximity to a provider, or fluency in that provider's language can influence a survivor's health outcome before any cancer treatment begins. In this episode, we share stories of cancer mavericks who rebelled against the foreshadowing of health disparities. 23-year survivor Mary P. Lovato started a support group at her pueblo in New Mexico that expanded to reach American Indian and Alaska Native tribes across the United States. After learning she had breast cancer at 31, Maimah Karmo made it her mission to advocate for young women, Black women, and those with metastatic disease — and to end health disparities in our lifetime. Finally, health disparities researcher Dr. Carmen Guerra shares how the University of Pennsylvania's Abramson Cancer Center nearly doubled the number of Black patients in its clinical trials. For more information about this series, visit https://CancerMavericks.com.

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For decades, the portrayal of cancer in movies and television was grim. If a character was diagnosed with cancer, it was a near certainty they'd be dead by the credits. But, like cancer treatment itself, Hollywood evolved, and many storylines about cancer became stories of survival.

In this episode, we ask the question, "Who influences us and why?" From musicians to television stars, film producers to televised cancer screenings, when celebrities lend their voices to raising awareness and fundraising, that kind of star power can move mountains. Join us as we hear from voices such as actor Patrick Dempsey, StandUp2Cancer Co-Founders Katie Couric, Pam Williams, the late Laura Ziskin. Also appearing in this episode: Steven Hoffman (Professor of Global Health Law and Political Science at York University in Toronto, Canada,) Dr. Larissa Nekhlyudov (Director of Internal Medicine for Cancer Survivors at the Dana Farber Cancer Institute,) Kami Kosenko (Professor of Communication at North Carolina State University,) and Milton Kent (Former reporter and sports columnist for The Baltimore Sun).

For more information about this series, visit https://CancerMavericks.com.

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Young adult cancer patients face a unique set of problems, but not so long ago they were a largely invisible and underserved community. On this episode we talk to mavericks of a new generation who fought to give young adults like them a voice.

In just over 20 years, the number of cancer survivors in the United States has doubled to 17 million survivors, each confronting their new (ab)normal lives. From chemo brain to PTSD, medical debt to workplace discrimination, this episode follows survivors along with their unique—and often difficult—paths post-treatment. In this episode, we hear from some of the godmothers of the cancer survivorship movement like Dr. Patricia Ganz and Barbara Hoffman and “everyday mavericks” who are forging ahead into life after cancer. For more information about this series, visit https://CancerMavericks.com

Advocacy can take many forms in the cancer community — from advocating for yourself or a loved one to receive the best possible treatment to calling your Congressperson or testifying on Capitol Hill to demand increased access to care. This episode explores different ways cancer mavericks have elevated survivors’ needs and improved their lives, including the pioneering patient navigation model created by Dr. Harold Freeman at Harlem Hospital, the story of Ellen Stovall’s fearless and collaborative approach to policy, shaped around a shared agenda to represent the needs of all cancer survivors, and the landmark 1998 March on Washington called Coming Together To Conquer Cancer. For more information about this series, visit www.CancerMavericks.com.

By the 1980s, cancer was no longer a death sentence. But the question of what surviving actually meant was unanswered. Cancer survivors had to navigate issues around employment, relationships, and the emotional and physical side effects of treatment in a world that largely didn’t know what to do with them. (and they were still called “victims.”) In 1985, a young doctor named Fitzhugh Mullan wrote an essay called “Seasons of Survival” about his own experience with cancer. His piece helped popularize the term “cancer survivor” and resonated with a growing number of survivors, who were starting to form support groups around the country. Among them was Catherine Logan Carrillo, the founder of People Living Through Cancer in New Mexico, who asked Fitzhugh to help her convene an “alumni association” for cancer survivors. And they did, during one monumental weekend in Albuquerque. For more information about this series, visit www.CancerMavericks.com.

Mary Lasker used to say that more money was spent on advertising campaigns for gum than was spent on cancer research. She’d seen the effects of that almost non-existent budget first hand: she watched people close to her die from cancer, including her advertising exec husband. She was outraged by the lack of money and research devoted to ending the disease. But with her own funds and influence, Mary Lasker rallied the public and lawmakers to take notice, ultimately leading to The National Cancer Act of 1971. This "War on Cancer" brought millions of dollars, but also harsh truths: there was no simple cure for cancer, and the remedies of modern science to control the disease took a devastating toll on patients. Rose Kushner was one of those patients. She questioned the treatments and surgeries that had become the status quo for medical experts. Her pushback helped start a massive change in the patient-doctor relationship as well as in cancer treatment. In Episode 1, we learn how Mary Lasker and Rose Kushner became two of the most important health policy advocates of the 20th century, putting cancer—and cancer patients—front and center.  For more information about this series, visit https://CancerMavericks.com

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Most people don’t know that you’re considered a cancer survivor at the moment of diagnosis. It wasn’t always this way. Sixty years ago, a cancer diagnosis was a death sentence. And if you did survive, you were left to figure out the rest of your life on your own.

But some survivors demanded something different, something better.

From OffScrip Media, this is The Cancer Mavericks, a deep-dive narrative into the people who fought for better treatment, forced doctors to listen, and pushed America to see the human side of the disease.

Episodes of this series will publish monthly through the end of December 2021 to commemorate the 50th anniversary of the signing of the National Cancer Act of 1971. For more information, visit https://cancermavericks.com.

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