What was Surviving! Magazine?

Surviving! was a Stanford Hospital-based magazine created by and about cancer patients that ran from 1983 to 2003. Over its 20-year run, Surviving! expanded from a small newsletter to a 16-page glossy magazine. It was a pioneering magazine by virtue of being a noncommercial, patient-driven, hospital-supported publication that focused on cancer patients communicating their stories to one another. It represented a new phase in medical consumers taking an active role in their own health care.

The appearance of the magazine can be seen within the context of changing trends in medical practice and social work. Following World War II, new developments in medicine had led to a national focus on cancer, heart disease and stroke. At Stanford, radiation therapy was improved through the work of Dr. Henry Kaplan, who installed the first medical linear accelerator in the U.S. in 1956. Working with Henry Kaplan, Dr. Saul Rosenberg began definitive trials in 1962 on Hodgkin’s disease treatment. The Department of Radiology and Radiation Therapy funded a social work position in the 1970s; and in the 1980s, Stanford Hospital initiated group therapy and psychosocial research on the quality of life of surviving cancer patients.

The idea for Surviving! was first sparked in 1983 when Dr. Fitzhugh Mullan, a visiting physician and himself a cancer patient, spoke to a large cancer patient support group led by clinical social worker Pat Fobair at Stanford Hospital. With support from the Stanford Department of Radiation Oncology, six patients and two hospital staff began publishing Surviving! as a six-page newsletter. Pat Fobair was the driving impetus behind the magazine. The editorial staff dedicated Surviving! to Dr. Henry Kaplan, a Stanford physician, whose work had made surviving cancer a reality for many.