In today’s episode, Dr. Robert Winn, director of VCU Massey Cancer Center, and Dr. John Stewart, founding director of LSU Health/LCMC Health Cancer Center, speak with Dr. Harold Freeman, the father of patient navigation.
Harold Freeman had big plans after he finished his residency at Memorial Sloan Kettering Cancer Center in 1968. He planned to cut cancer out of Harlem.
However, Freeman’s patients, Harlem residents who were poor and Black, often sought treatment too late. Freeman asked why—and aimed to fix this. This led to Memorial Sloan Kettering’s Breast Examination Center of Harlem, of which Freeman became the founding director. As president of the American Cancer Society in 1988, he published a study, "Cancer in the socioeconomically disadvantaged," exploring for the first time how poverty contributes to untreated cancers. All of this work, and his concerns about racial injustice, led to Freeman’s founding of patient navigation, an advance in helping people who face disparities address cancer.
This recording is part of a series of interviews conducted by Robert Winn, guest editor of the Cancer History Project during Black History Month. You can read the transcript of this recording here: cancerhistoryproject.com/people/harold-freeman-cutting-cancer-out-of-harlem
