By Andrew Holtz, MPH

T hey aren’t the stereotypicalcourageous patients so oftentrotted out in media portrayalsof people facing cancer treat-

ment. A nonsmoker dealing with ade-nocarcinoma and a new mother whodelayed examination of a breast lumpare two portraits of cancer patients thatwon kudos this year from a group thatadvises television scriptwriters onhealth and medical issues.

Award for General Hospital

The character of Alexis Davis, on ABC’sGeneral Hospital daytime drama, is inremission following treatment for StageII adenocarcinoma. She’s a nonsmokerin her mid-40s. The judges of the Sen-tinel for Health Award noted that thestoryline, which has been going on for

more than a year, “addresses a com-mon myth about lung cancer—thatonly smokers get it—and accurately

depicts the strugglesduring treatment fromsurgery and chemo-therapy.”

In one scene,Alexis (played byNancy Lee Grahn) isalone in a room, look-ing in a mirror atwhat’s left of her hair,thinned by treatment.She reaches into a box,takes out a wig, andtries it on. The reflected image makesher laugh. She pulls off the wig. Thenher laughter crumbles into tears andshe screams, “Oh, god, this sucks! Thissucks! It just sucks! God!” Sobbing, shepushes the mirror down.

General Hospital head writer RobertGuza says the wig scene turned outextremely well, capturing the range ofemotions that whipsaw people who

have cancer, and avoiding a sugar-coat-ed portrayal of battling disease.

“We really made a commitment todo it honestly. We’ve all had variousexperiences with cancer; and it’s notlike these people are striding forwardto thwart the disease. It’s scary. It’s ter-rifying. It’s humiliating. Some of it isfunny,” he said.

Award for Grey’s Anatomy

There was also not a whit of heroic ide-alism in the portrayal of a young moth-er with breast cancer on Grey’s Anat-omy, also on ABC. Guilt was the themeof the episode that won the award forbest Primetime Minor Storyline.

“There’s the guilt of just puttingeverything into yourself and having toreally be selfish for that moment; takingcare of yourself and maybe putting offpart of the family,” says writer ZoanneClack, MD.

The character feels guilty also for,at least in part, blaming her baby forcausing a delay in diagnosis; thechanges in her breast were assumed tojust be part of her pregnancy. Some-thing similar happened to a friend ofDr. Clack’s: what turned out to be atumor was first thought to be just thedevelopment of a milk duct. She saysshe hopes the episode alerts womenthat breast tumors do sometimesappear during pregnancy, when themany changes in a woman’s body maymask an abnormal growth.

‘What Public HealthMessages?’

While telling stories that capture view-ers is the first priority of all TV writers,Dr. Clack says that when interviewingmedical experts as part of their storyresearch, she and her colleagues alwayskeep in mind the reach of their dramas.

“We’ll always say, before the endof the call, ‘What public health mes-sages would you like 25 million people

(continued on page 46)

No Poster Children Here: The 2007 Sentinel for Health Awards

PAGE 45 / FEBRUARY 25, 2008

S C R I P T D O C T O R : M E D I C I N E I N T H E M E D I A

Andrew Holtz, MPH, is a

former CNN Medical

Correspondent and the author

of “The Medical Science of

House, M.D.” Send questions

to him about how the media

treat medical topics or

suggestions for future columns

to OT@lwwny.com

Some members of Congress want toyell “Cut!” on the set of the Holly-

wood, Health & Society program.Wisconsin Congressman Paul Ryan(R) called the outreach to TV writers a“boondoggle” and “frivolous” as heintroduced an amendment to legisla-tion funding the Labor, Health andHuman Services, and Education de-partments that would have forbiddenthe CDC from spending money on itsEntertainment Education Program.

A spokeswoman said that Rep.Ryan thinks TV shows should payfor their own story research.

The Ryan amendment was in-cluded in the bill passed in the House.Over on the Senate side, Oklahoma’sTom Coburn, MD (R) issued a reporttitled “CDC Off Center,” that at-tacked the Hollywood liaison pro-gram and some other CDC projects.

“A question taxpayers mightconsider appropriate: Should theCDC spend $1.9 million to helpHollywood develop its plotlines?”Sen. Coburn’s report asks. The $1.9million figure includes all the CDCmoney spent on the Hollywood,Health & Society program over aneight-year period. The program alsoreceives support from NCI and otheragencies.

Sen. Coburn also thinks TVshows should do their own home-work. “With the multi-billion dollar

television industry, million-dollar-per-episode salaries for TV actors,and millions of dollars of revenuefrom daytime and prime-time dra-mas, should it be a priority for tax-payers to have CDC-funded Holly-wood liaisons to help producers getthe health storylines correct?” hisreport asks.

As the Senate bill headed towarda vote, supporters of the Hollywood,Health & Society (HH&S) programrallied.

The Executive Director of theAmerican Public Health Association,Georges C. Benjamin, MD, sent a let-ter that called the Ryan amendment“ill-conceived.” “The truth is thatthese restrictions would interrupteffective and evidence-based publichealth programs,” he wrote.

A blogger who does entertain-ment education work, but is not con-nected with the HH&S program, sentout an alert to readers: “Entertain-ment education is so much morecost-effective than producing andbuying media time for 30-secondcommercials. Because nowadays,what people are paying attention toin the media is the entertainmentcontent. They are not looking at theadvertisement anymore. They arezooming past them with their TiVosand their DVRs [digital videorecorders]. So when we can get

health promotion information intothe actual content of what people arewatching, that is so much more effec-tive,” Nedra Kline Weinreich said inan interview.

While the Ryan amendment wasadded to the House bill withoutopposition, things were different inthe Senate. No Senator spoke in favorof the amendment, and Sen. Coburnwithdrew the section forbiddingCDC spending on the HH&S pro-gram. The House-Senate conferencecommittee then dropped Rep. Ryan’sspending ban. President Bush vetoedthe first version of the bill. But thefinal spending package that passedjust as Congress adjourned for theyear left the entertainment educationfunding intact.

Grey’s Anatomy writer ZoanneClack, MD, welcomed the news thatshe would continue to be able to callon the HH&S staff.

“They get these fantastic experts,which I’m sure we wouldn’t be ableto find,” she said. “It removes many,many steps to get to the right infor-mation, to get to the most accurateinformation, and to the people whoare the most involved and the mostconnected to it. They are actuallydoing the research. They are investedin it and invested in what kind ofinformation is getting out there.”

—AH

Fade to Black?

The Awards are given by the Hollywood, Health & Society program of theUniversity of SouthernCalifornia AnnenbergSchool’s Norman Lear

Center, with support fromthe CDC and the NCI,

which advise TV writers onhealth and medical topics.

Jennifer Pietenpol, PhD, Professor ofBiochemistry and Ingram Professor ofCancer Research at the Vanderbilt Uni-versity School of Medicine, has beennamed Director of Vanderbilt-IngramCancer Center after serving as InterimDirector since February 2007. Shejoined Vanderbilt in 1994 and in 2002became the Cancer Center’s AssociateDirector for Basic Sciences.

Richard Gralla, MD, has been appoint-ed Chief of Hematology/Oncology andVice President of Cancer Services atNorth Shore University Hospital andLong Island Jewish Medical Center inLake Success, NY. He was previouslyChief of Thoracic Oncology at Memor-ial Sloan-Kettering Cancer Center,Director of the Ochsner Cancer Insti-tute, and Associate Director of theColumbia University ComprehensiveCancer Center.

Richard Jove, PhD, has been namedDirector of the City of Hope BeckmanResearch Institute. In his new appoint-ment, Dr. Jove, who is also DeputyDirector of the City of Hope Compre-hensive Cancer Center, will lead the re-search institute’s efforts to bring togeth-

er basic scientists and physicians inorder to accelerate the development ofnew therapies for cancer, diabetes, andother life-threatening diseases. He suc-ceeds Arthur Riggs, PhD, now DirectorEmeritus and Professor of Biology atthe Beckman Research Institute.

Also at City of Hope, David A. Horne,PhD, is the new Chair of the Division ofMolecular Medicine. Dr. Horne, aninternationally recognized leader in thefield of natural products synthesis,especially in the areas of biologicallyactive marine alkaloids and medicinalchemistry, joined City of Hope in 2006as Professor in Molecular Medicine andCo-director of the Synthetic and Bio-polymer Chemistry Core Program, aposition he will retain.

Gina Szymanski , MS, RN, NurseManager at the Johns Hopkins KimmelCancer Center, has received the LindaArenth Excellence in Cancer NursingManagement Award from the Oncol-ogy Nursing Society. Named for thefirst Director of Nursing at the CancerCenter, who died of the disease in 1982,the award recognizes outstanding indi-viduals in cancer nursing administra-

tion at the local, state, and national lev-els, as well as those who mentor othersin the field.

Anthony Ingenito, MD, an oncologistand researcher at the Cancer Center atHackensack (NJ) University MedicalCenter, has been named foundingChairman of the newly establishedDepartment of Radiation Oncology. Dr.Ingenito was formerly Medical Directorof the Division of Radiation Oncology,which was recently upgraded to de-partmental status to reflect the com-plexity and comprehensiveness of theservices offered, including an increas-ing number of clinical trials.

Kristen S. Coller, MD, has joined thePain and Palliative Medicine Programat Ohio State University MedicalCenter. Dr. Coller recently completedher fellowship with Kansas City Hos-pice and Palliative Care at the Univer-sity of Kansas Medical Center and iscertified in both internal medicine andhospice and palliative care. In additionto her work at the medical center, Dr.Coller will also work with the staff andpatients in the James Cancer Hospitaland Solove Research Institute. O

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PAGE 46 / FEBRUARY 25, 2008

to hear?’”A Sentinel for Health Award is

affirmation that they’ve used theirbroadcast pulpit well.

“To be recognized for that and tobe able to know that our stories havegotten those messages across is incredi-bly important to me and to the rest ofthe staff,” she said.

The Awards are given out each fallto television dramas and comedies thataddress health topics by the Holly-wood, Health & Society program at theUSC Annenberg School’s Norman LearCenter in Los Angeles. The program,

with support from the Centers forDisease Control and Prevention and theNational Cancer Institute, advises tele-vision writers on health and medicaltopics. (See box on the Congressionaldebate over CDC funding.)

Robert Guza says he also prizes theSentinel for Health award recognitionas an endorsement of their efforts to beaccurate in how they depict importanthealth and medical subjects.

“The accuracy is very important tous,” he said. “Now, I’ll do other storiesthat aren’t medically related and I’llmake the whole thing up and I don’tcare particularly. If I can compel andinterest you, that’s fine. But in theseparticular instances, these specific[health and medical] stories, it was real

important that we got it accurate….Asmuch as we try to entertain aroundhere, it’s nice to send some messagesout there, if you can.”

Emotional Roller Coaster

Illustrating the emotional roller coasterof cancer diagnosis and treatment is notonly more accurate than sanitized talesof valiant struggles by “courageous”patients; it also makes for richer stories.

On General Hospital, Alexis is inremission, but the writers haven’tdeclared her cured. There hasn’t been avictory celebration. The ultimate out-come remains in doubt. So the writersget to take the character through aseries of emotional phases: relief as

treatment pushed back the cancer,questions about whether it wouldreturn, hope it might not, nagging con-cerns that it will.

Guza says they haven’t decidedjust how the whole story will play out,but he knows something about the reallife odds facing people who’ve beenthrough lung cancer treatment.

“I would say the chances are verygood that she will recur in the future,”he predicts.

A recurrence would present newopportunities for emotionally grippingstorytelling—and it would match thefrequent reality.

“This is the kind of thing that isongoing in many cases. I think we’dlike to honor that.” O

T

ScriptDoctorcontinued from page 45

S H O P TA L K

Kristen S. Coller, MDAnthony Ingenito, MDGina Szymanski, MS, RNDavid A. Horne, PhDJennifer Pietenpol, PhD

Richard Gralla, MD

Richard Jove, PhD