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Columbia University Medical Center NewsroomCUMC Expert Resources
| ![[picture of Barron Lerner, M.D. (<i>illness and celebrity</i>)]](http://www.cumc.columbia.edu/news/pics/lerner_barron_90.jpg) Barron Lerner, M.D. (illness and celebrity),
Recent disclosures of cancer recurrences by political figure Elizabeth Edwards and White House spokesman Tony Snow vividly illustrate a number of dilemmas that well-known individuals must tackle when going public with health problems and concerns. Dr. Barron Lerner, the Angelica Berrie-Gold Foundation Associate Professor of Medicine and Public Health and author of "When Illness Goes Public: Celebrity Patients and How We Look at Medicine" (Johns Hopkins University Press, October 2006), can outline the unique issues and circumstances famous patients face, tracing the evolution of celebrity illnesses from private matters to stories of widespread interest. He also can comment on both the Edwards and Snow cases, examining them against the broader backdrop of other well-publicized medical crises."What makes Mrs. Edwards'' and Mr. Snow''s cases so different is that many celebrity patients have been cured or expect to be cured, " says Dr. Lerner. "These two individuals are the rare famous patients who have bleak prognoses and thus their stories raise provocative and uncomfortable issues about how those who battle metastatic cancer should balance aggressive treatment with impending death." A medical ethicist, historian, practitioner, and educator of distinction, Dr. Lerner is affiliated with the Center for Bioethics and the Center for the Study of Society and Medicine at Columbia. He is also the author of "The Breast Cancer Wars: Hope, Fear and the Pursuit of a Cure in Twentieth-Century America," which won the prestigious William H. Welch Medal from the American Association for the History of Medicine and was named one of 2001''s most notable books by the American Library Association. For press inquiries, please contact Elizabeth Streich (eas2125@columbia.edu or 212-305-6535) or Alex Lyda(mal2133@columbia.edu or 212-305-0820).
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