Memorial Sloan Kettering Cancer Center, housed in magisterial granite and glass high-rises near New York City’s East River, is the court of last resort for the desperate and the dying. They often arrive in ambulances, accompanied by a filing cabinet full of medical records that recount in dispassionate detail years of ultimately futile therapies.
In the early 2000s, when Joanne Weidhaas was a radiation oncology resident at the renowned facility, one of her mentors made a chance remark that would shape the course of her career.
“Pay attention and notice this: You’ll see that cancer is not evenly spread,” he told her. “There will be people that get not just one, but two and even three different types of cancers.”
Weidhaas noticed. She saw the people hit again and again — in their lungs, then the colon or the pancreas. These patients haunted Weidhaas. “After their initial diagnosis, in the back of your mind you’re always filled with this sickening dread because you’re wondering if they’ll have to go through this all over again,” she says. She also saw how unpredictably the disease struck. “Everyone thinks of cancer patients as old, sickly, 10-pack-a-day smokers, but many are super healthy. Cancer blindsides you — one day you’re healthy, and the next day you’re not.”
