UW News

April 20, 2006

When patients are famous

There are two kinds of celebrity patients: those who are well-known before they become sick and those who become celebrities because of their illness or how it is treated.

Dr. Barron Lerner, a physician who earned his Ph.D. in history from the UW and was a Robert Wood Johnson clinical scholar here, has been studying both kinds. He will speak about his findings at the Bodemer Lecture of the Department of Medical History and Ethics from 3:30 to 4:30 p.m., Tuesday, April 25, in Hogness Auditorium at the Health Sciences Center.

When the Famous Get Sick and the Sick Get Famous: Celebrity Patients and How We Look at Medicine is the topic and the presentation is open to everyone.

Lerner will offer case histories from his forthcoming book, scheduled for publication in October 2006, including Lou Gehrig, Steve McQueen, Barney Clark, Elizabeth Glaser and Lance Armstrong. Through public attention, these and other famous patients have shaped public perceptions about specific diseases, influenced medical research, energized political campaigns for health resources and redefined patients’ expectations about the doctor-patient relationship, Lerner has found. He will also discuss how growing attention to celebrity illness has come into conflict with the rise of evidence-based medicine, another recent trend.

The speaker is now the Angelica Berrie Gold Foundation associate professor of medicine and public health at Columbia University and part of the Center for the Study of Society & Medicine there. He also continues as a practicing physician.

Lerner earned a bachelor’s degree in history from the University of Pennsylvania and then an M.D. from Columbia College of Physicians & Surgeons. At the UW, he earned a master’s degree in medical history and ethics, and then his Ph.D. in 1996.

In 2003, Lerner received an award for health policy research from the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation to pursue work on the studies of celebrity patients. He is particularly interested in the ways celebrity cases influence debates about health policy.

He is also the author of The Breast Cancer Wars: Hope, Fear and the Pursuit of a Cure in Twentieth-Century America and has written essays for The New York Times, The Washington Post and other newspapers. He has been featured on several National Public Radio programs, including Fresh Air and Science Friday.

The lecture is named for Dr. Charles Bodemer, founder and chair of the Department of Biomedical History from 1967 until his death in 1985. The department name was later changed to Medical History and Ethics.