April 29, 2010

Bruce Dan's blog about his acute myelocytic leukemia

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Physician, journalist, entrepeneur Bruce Dan was recently diagnosed with acute myelocytic leukemia and is blogging about his treatment.

As another friend of Bruce’s – Robert Davis – wrote to me:

“It’s really remarkable that Bruce is able to write about his leukemia treatment as he goes through it, sharing his perspectives as a patient, physician and journalist.”

Powerfully, he includes what I’ll call a “teaching moment” in each blog entry. Excerpt:

Cytosine arabinoside works by disrupting the copies of DNA in a cell when it tries to divide and multiply. Watson and Crick won the Nobel prize for discovering the chemical structure of DNA, that famous spiral-shaped ladder. Each rung of the ladder is composed of a pairing of two of four molecules: adenine, thymine, guanine, and cytosine, simply referred to as A, T, G, and C. The new Director of the NIH and former head of the Human Genome Project, Dr. Francis Collins, refers to DNA, “as made up of that simple 4-letter vocabulary.”

If personality can help get you through a life bump like this, then Bruce is well equipped. Any encounter I’ve ever had with him starts with an ear-to-ear grin and warm welcome.

Bruce was instrumental in starting me on my current path of trying to improve health journalism. He and George Lundberg worked with me to publish my very first health journalism critique in 1992 – the JAMA piece, “The Magical Medical Media Tour.” Wow. 18 years ago.

Read his blog, learn from Bruce’s lessons, and say a prayer for him.

Comments (6)

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Lori Horsley

May 3, 2010 at 9:38 am

RE: Bruce Dan – is there a link to his blog? Or can you send the address? My Dad has AML and I am very interested to read Dan’s blog.
Thanks!
Lori

Gary Schwitzer

May 3, 2010 at 9:44 am

Lori,
The link is in the original post, but here it is again:
http://brucedan.wordpress.com/

dan snyder

May 23, 2010 at 5:51 pm

Dear Bruce,
I have no advice, tips or suggestions of any kind…
I don’t know the exact definition of 1st class however I will make this bold assessment of you: You are a whole level above first class…
We’ve known you for about 15 years and in the last month or so we’ve had the privelidge and joy of getting to spend some time with your R & E over dinners and just hanging out together. It doesn’t
take a detective to see where your kids get their good looks and brains from. You’ve done very well in the Dad department and a few other departments as well.
We are all your fans here at the Snyder household and even our dog Harley owes you for his TV career since you featured him on one of your medical reports on the benefits of exercise by daily walking your dog.
We wish you a speedy recovery and look forward to spending some time with you when you resume your normal life again…
Your coolness and intellectual depth as a Dr. and a great neighbor has been a source of inspiration to all of us.
You have our love, admiration and deepest respect.
Love,
Dan & Janet Snyder and Family & Harley

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