When Fame Turns Fatal

What you can learn from celebrities whose diagnoses were too late, or ignored

Annie Spratt on Unsplash.

I am not a Hollywood doctor to the stars, but I have seen many famous rock stars and movie idols, prominent politicians, world leaders, and wealthy CEOs during my time as a cancer doctor at the Mayo Clinic.

Although I cannot name these famous patients because of privacy laws, nor would I violate the doctor/patient confidentiality bond with any patient, I can make some observations that you might find interesting.

Some people speculate that prominent patients don’t get the same treatment as you and I do. And consider that some premature deaths might even be caused by doctors who were too intimidated by the fame of their patients to order life-saving and life-assuring tests. I’m thinking of a colonoscopy (Ronald Reagan), a PSA test (Joe Biden, who has prostate cancer), or endocrine cancer testing (Steve Jobs).

Mismanaged medical treatment for the famous is nothing new. Gone are the days of bloodletting when George Washington’s doctors clearly killed him by draining nearly half his blood to treat a throat infection. We don’t have to worry that we’ll be like 18-year-old King Tut who died from an infected broken leg because ancient Egyptians didn’t have antibiotics although they had very cool pyramids.

In these cases, the life-saving treatments were just not available. But sometimes, today, the prominent patients themselves avoid appropriate treatment until it is too late, when early intervention and standard medical care would surely save their lives.

Read the rest of this post on Medium here: https://medium.com/wise-well/when-fame-turns-fatal-48f8a3a0774c