A Love Story

January 6, 2025 | Fitzroy Dawkins, M.D.

Stone Hill Arts Book Club | February 3 | 6:30 p.m. | Ristuccia Library

I am very excited for an opportunity to discuss my first book Fighting for Survival: Conquering Cancer and the African American Patient, at Stone Hill Church on February 3, 2025. I am grateful for the invitation to have this heartfelt conversation about a subject matter that has been dear to me for over 30 years.

I am a medical oncologist with almost 15 years of practice at Howard University, a HBCU (Historically Black College or University) in the heart of Washington, DC. For the last 18 years I have been deeply involved in conducting biotech-based clinical trials and, more recently, providing consultant services to biotech companies navigating the many regulatory pathways required for drug approval in the U.S. I have a passion for biomedical research and clinical trials.

In the last 50 years since President Nixon’s War on Cancer, there has been a sea change in our management of The Emperor of All Maladies (a book about cancer by Siddhartha Mukerjee, MD). Some stage IV cancers are curable and patients are living longer with cancer compared to two decades ago. However, not all segments of our society are benefiting from this extraordinary, ongoing revolution. My book asks “Why?” Fighting for Survival explores the basis for distrust of the Medical Industrial Complex (particularly clinical trials), the nature of fear, the impact of the Prosperity Gospel on cancer care, and the nature of self-inflicted guilt.

Science has fallen on hard times, it seems. Yet it is a fundamental ingredient in providing hope as we continue to battle the “Emperor…”

I look forward to a vigorous and, I hope, enlightening conversation.

Fitzroy

Click here to purchase a copy of Fighting for Survival.