News flash: CNN has done something right for Houston and cancer patients. Tune in Sunday night to see the results.
Dr. Sanjay Gupta says he's wanted to do a story on cancer survivors for a long time. But it was not until last year, while visiting Houston's M.D. Anderson Cancer Center, that he knew from where that story would originate."I called (M.D. Anderson president) Dr. John Mendelsohn and as he was talking, two things struck me," CNN's medical correspondent said. "One, he said this is a happy place, which is exactly the opposite impression people have of a cancer hospital. Second, he said a large percentage of the employees at this hospital are former patients, which said two things: One, they lived, and two, that they work at the place where they almost died."
With the cooperation of M.D. Anderson staff and volunteers, family members of patients and, most of all, the patients themselves, Gupta's story becomes reality this weekend. Thanks to that extraordinary access, CNN Presents: Taming the Beast: Inside the War on Cancer (7 and 10 p.m. Sunday, CNN) succeeds in painting a modern-day picture of cancer and the exceptional people — caregivers and patients — fighting the war on that disease.
Gupta and a CNN team swooped into Houston more than a half-dozen times over the past year, accumulating hundreds of hours of video for Sunday's one-hour report, visiting with warriors who have defeated cancer or tirelessly fought it for many years.
Related:
• CNN Presents
• M. D. Anderson Cancer Center