00:03Thank you, thank you. Thank you everyone. It's a pleasure to be here, especially flying
00:16overnight from Comic-Con in San Diego to this large group. It's a pleasure to be here and
00:25a privilege, and I want to thank Dr. Shaw so much for those very kind words, and to my
00:32wife, Katherine. I really appreciate that. I don't know, Dr. Shaw, maybe we should start
00:38a new format of, you know, when we begin chemo radiation, we get a bunch of roses, but then
00:46maybe not, you know. You know, I've always thought that speaking after a former president
00:54would mean that I've done something pretty extraordinary in life, but it turns out all
01:01I had to do was have cancer. So generally, when I'm on a stage, a prestigious event like this,
01:09you know, I'm accepting some kind of an award. So obviously today is a little bit different
01:16for me, standing in front of 3,000 doctors. I'll just be grateful not to walk out of here
01:24without another prognosis of some sort. As long as nobody tells me to bend over and touch my
01:31toes and cough, we're all going to be just fine. Thank you. No, no, in all seriousness and
01:39in every sense of the word, I'm very fortunate to be here today. And I'm comfortable in saying
01:48that I owe most of that good fortune to the venerable field of head and neck oncology,
01:55and particularly to Dr. Shaw, Dr. Pfister, Dr. Lee, and the many teams that supported and helped me at
02:04Memorial Sloan Kettering. Now, some of you might have heard of my case. I had stage 4 oropharynx cancer.
02:17And even though I have played a doctor in my movies a couple of times, I'm ready to concede
02:23that you all certainly know much more better than me just how many cases of oropharyngeal,
02:30oropharyngeal, how was that? Was that right? Oropharyngeal? Occurrences happen every year
02:36in the population and what the prognosis and treatments generally are. I think that's what
02:42you all call medicine. But one of the ways my case was very similar to that of thousands
02:49of other cancer patients is that I was initially misdiagnosed. Not once, not twice, but three times.
03:02To you all, this is probably a familiar story. It all started out pretty innocently with the
03:08soreness of my gum behind my last molar. And being pretty diligent about my health, I went to see my
03:16GP,
03:17who thought I had an infection, and so was prescribing antibiotics, which being a good patient I took.
03:25And then I saw an ENT, and then I saw a periodontist. But after a number of months, when this
03:32supposed infection hadn't gone away despite multiple rounds of treatment, I was pretty certain
03:40that this wasn't simply just a sore gum. So I was up in Canada with a friend who put me
03:48in touch
03:48with Dr. Saul Frankel, who's the ENT and head of the department at McGill University. And he examined me,
03:58and we had one of those uh-oh moments, which is never a good thing to hear from your plumber
04:06or mechanic,
04:07but is a really bad thing to hear from your doctor. And after confirming the diagnosis with a CAT scan,
04:17Dr. Frankel and I started talking about what was I going to do next. I told them I liked to
04:24be treated
04:24in New York, where I live, so I could go back to my home every night. So Dr. Frankel looked
04:33into who would be
04:34the right doctor for me to see, and given my specific case. And after checking with a few of his
04:41colleagues,
04:42he came back with one name, which had been unanimously recommended, and that was none other than Dr. Shaw.
05:00Now, when I learned that I had stage 4 cancer, I'm pretty sure that my eyes rolled into the back
05:08of my head,
05:09and from a little I knew, this wasn't good. And I think that was probably the scariest moment I faced.
05:21But it was there that Dr. Shaw's ability, not just as a surgeon, since fortunately I cannot attest to his
05:32expertise in that regard,
05:35but as what you would better think of as a physician became very apparent to me.
05:40He said something which I found, I found so intelligent, even in that very difficult moment,
05:47or maybe because it was in a difficult moment that it mattered so much to me,
05:52which is that if we are going to think of this first as a cancer of the throat, and not
06:00of the tongue.
06:02Because as you know, the throat we can treat one way, and the tongue another.
06:10And it was best to start with what we could hope for before turning to the darker question of surgery,
06:17and what that would mean for me, and my career.
06:22But that was one of the things that I found over the course of my treatment at Sloan Kettering.
06:28There was always a positive note, never a false note.
06:34And I knew I was in the best possible hands, even if those hands were reaching down my throat more
06:42often than I would have liked.
06:44But there was a confidence in knowing that not just Dr. Shaw, but Dr. Pfister, and Dr. Lee,
06:51who provided my chemotherapy and radiation treatments, as well as every layer of staff at the hospital,
06:59were in sync working to help me get better.
07:03And that allowed me to put me in their hands and to do what I needed to do as a
07:10patient.
07:14Looking back, you know, on the experience, I realized that you learn a few valuable things as a patient.
07:23One is that cancer is one of those things in life for which you will always want to hear the
07:29bad news first.
07:32Having stage 4 cancer was pretty bad.
07:35Learning from Dr. Shaw what stage 4 cancer meant in the context of the head and neck was a little
07:42less bad.
07:45And over the course of my treatment and my series of regular follow-up exams,
07:49things moved to the side of better and gradually even became good.
07:57I went through seven weeks of radiation and chemotherapy, which somehow seemed very accurately mapped to the seven circles of
08:06hell.
08:08And each week I sank a little lower and I felt a little, no, I felt a lot worse.
08:16And I'd been given the choice of having a feeding tube put in my stomach, which as you know would
08:23have had consequences for swallowing and taste later on,
08:28or refusing that and dealing with it as best I could, which is what I did and I did lose
08:3540 pounds as a result.
08:39But I've been prepared for all that.
08:44The doctors and nurses at Sloan Kettering had warned me not to expect to feel great the moment those seven
08:53weeks were over,
08:54that there'd be another five weeks of feeling pretty awful until I could even hope to improve.
09:02And in the meantime, I was referred to a nutritionist who worked with me on a regular basis to help
09:09me maintain as much of my weight as possible.
09:13And something that made a great difference, not just with my physical health,
09:18but in giving me a sense of control and involvement in what was happening.
09:24And all of that was enormously important.
09:29Like a soldier, I prepared for battle.
09:34And from the outset, I knew it was their job to treat me and that they were among the best
09:40trained and most capable medical teams on the face of this planet.
09:44And it was my job to toughen up and get ready for the treatment and later on for my recovery.
09:54And that's what I was able to do.
09:59Now, one of the other things I learned as a patient is that how to distinguish a doctor is by
10:08seeing how many fellows and residents there are that are following around behind him.
10:14So, by this standard, it was quite clear Dr. Shaw was highly regarded.
10:22But as I thought more about this, I realized there's a lot of meaning in that correlation.
10:30Doctors come to this department from all over the world to learn from one of the best in the field.
10:35Why?
10:36Because like any great science, medicine depends on the transfer and dissemination of knowledge to drive progress.
10:47Doctors have to know what works and what doesn't.
10:51And they have to know who's tried this or that treatment so they don't unnecessarily replicate it rather than trying
10:59something new.
11:01To you, this is, you know, probably particularly not a new point.
11:06But to me, it's an important one nonetheless.
11:09And maybe one of the most important things I learned through having and overcoming this disease.
11:17And that is that cancer cannot be fought as a series of individual battles, but as a well-planned war
11:25in which all of us, both medical professionals like yourselves and patients like me, are allies.
11:34Now, looking at things from this perspective, I realized that being misdiagnosed had nothing to do with whether or not
11:42I had good doctors.
11:43I had great doctors.
11:46What was missing in the equation was a simple bit of information that could have led my doctor to consider
11:55this one option.
11:56Which to you, as specialists, is the area that might be pretty clear, but to doctors working in other specialties,
12:05it's not.
12:08There's an obvious incumbency to share knowledge, to learn from one another.
12:15Doctors learning from doctors, patients from patients, and institution from institution.
12:21The role technology plays is especially important, not just in healing the body, but in connecting medical communities to each
12:31other to make sure the latest advances reach every corner of the field.
12:38The International Federation of Head and Neck Oncology Societies, the American Head and Neck Society, and Memorial Sloan Kettering Hospital
12:48are powerful allies who every day push the field a little bit further, changing the way we understand head and
12:58neck cancer.
12:59And not just saving the lives of countless patients, but improving the quality and effectiveness of their treatment.
13:09And through your tireless efforts that spans nations, continents, cultures, and languages, and the courage you display in confronting something
13:23so seemingly implacable as cancer,
13:28you embody the essential values of cooperation, education, and the sharing of knowledge.
13:38The proposal made by the International Federation of Head and Neck Oncology Societies to proclaim today, July 27th, as the
13:49World Head and Neck Cancer Day, is a right move to share and advance knowledge to the world by organizing
13:56education,
13:57educational activities, and educational activities each year on this day. I wholeheartedly support this proclamation.
14:14This is the road on which I believe progress lies, and this, of course, is why you all are here
14:22today.
14:24For a century, Memorial Sloan Kettering Cancer Center has led the way in head and neck oncology. That century, I
14:33can say, saved my life.
14:37With this room full of men and women like yourselves, devoted to this field, pushing it forward with every case
14:46you take and each patient that you treat,
14:48we can only imagine what the next century will bring. And short of that, we can look around and we
14:58can say that something is working.
15:01I'm living proof of the progress this field is making. And for that, I can offer my wholehearted gratitude for
15:12your collective dedication and for your expertise.
15:17And I want to thank you all very much for having me here today. Thank you.
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