Intermountain live-tweets cancer surgery
Aug 9, 2017, 12:19 PM | Updated: 12:52 pm
MURRAY — A cancer doctor at Intermountain Healthcare is recovering from surgery today to remove his own cancer, and he allowed the whole experience to be blogged and live-tweeted.
Surgical oncologist Dr. Mark Ott says his colleague, Dr. Mark Lewis, wanted his surgery shared publicly to raise awareness. “I don’t think there’s anything more compelling than a personal story, and this is it,” said
“I don’t think there’s anything more compelling than a personal story, and this is it,” said Dr. Ott.
Dr. Lewis became a doctor because he knew he had the genetic marker for the type of pancreatic cancer he ended up developing. Intermountain tweeted pictures and information during the long surgery to remove the neuroendocrine tumor.
“The surgery went very well, he is doing well. It took the standard amount of time, 5 1/2 to 6 hours,” said Dr Ott.
Dr. Ott says Dr. Lewis is now recovering and walking around the hospital.
“He just wanted to raise awareness of this condition, for all the people out there who have a similar condition but don’t get as much interest as people with more common conditions like breast cancer or prostate cancer,” says Dr. Ott.
Dr. Lewis is being treated for the same type of cancer that killed Steve Jobs, and for which BYU head basketball coach Dave Rose was treated. His team does not believe Dr. Lewis’s case is as severe, and they did not find any additional tumors during the surgery, but they should know more in the next few days.
