Cancer: A Personal Journey. Notes from the Edge.The Diary of Peter J. Morgan, M.D

It is a mistake to think that all personal experiences with cancer are the same. For certain, all cancer patients do confront the possibility of an early death and the prospect of pain and suffering due to the tumor and its treatment. But the specific emotional issues differ with each patient and each family, and the responses to these issues take many forms. In an eloquent and moving film, "Cancer: A Personal Journey. Notes from the Edge.," we are given the privilege of accompanying a remarkable young physician, Peter J. Morgan, on his journey with cancer, a two and one-half year journey that ended with his death at age 31. At age 29, Dr. Morgan, an internist-in-training who intended to pursue a career in hematology and oncology, noted a mass on his leg. Tragically, metastasis to the lungs had already taken place at the time of diagnosis of a synovial sarcoma. There followed the all-too-familiar story of chemotherapy and experimental treatments, pain, debilitation, and ultimately demise, and in itself this experience would move us with the sorrow of a precious life lost. What makes this particular story so remarkable are the insights of this young physician and the struggle for survival of a spirit that would not succumb to the "chaos" of cancer. In the two-year period of his life as a cancer patient, Peter Morgan kept a diary that records his thoughts, his emotional turmoil, and his reflections on life and an untimely death. In particular, we are able to understand the need for his spiritual self to remain alive and to grow despite the deterioration of his physical being. And we see that spiritual triumph in his compelling relationships with his family and his colleagues, in his reflections on art and music and nature, and most of all in his writings and his appreciation of the immense possibilities for joy in life. This is not an easy journey to watch, but the intense sadness of his experience is balanced by his friendships and the great satisfaction he derived from patient care until the end of his own illness. We hear accounts of his leaving his hospital bed in New York City, where he has received an infusion of chemotherapy, and driving across Long Island to volunteer at a university out-patient clinic in Stonybrook. During the last year of his life, he becomes a beloved teacher and attending physician in this clinic. One is left with the feeling that Peter Morgan has learned a great deal about what is important and beautiful in this life. The filmmaker, Ruth Yorkin Drazen, and the narrator, Matthew Broderick, have created a masterpiece. I can remember only one other movie, "Shadowland," the story of C.S. Lewis's marriage and the loss of his wife due to cancer, that speaks as eloquently to the confrontation with cancer. In that film, one is left with the overwhelming sorrow of the husband. The present film goes far beyond many of the personal narratives about cancer experiences that one finds so often in the media, simply because it allows a remarkable individual to speak to us about what was most precious in his life. For those of us in the medical profession, his message is particularly meaningful: his work as a physician was at the top of his list.