Stanford University, School of Medicine
The Robert G. Fenley Writing Awards: General Staff Writing
Gold
After months of experiencing a deep hacking cough, physician Bryant Lin was shocked to learn he had late-stage lung cancer, and it had metastasized to other parts of his body. The husband and father of two was only weeks away from his 50th birthday. Those who know him best weren’t surprised at what came next: Lin followed his passion for the human side of medicine by telling his story far and wide — and most uniquely through a class called From Diagnosis to Dialogue: A Doctor's Real-Time Battle with Cancer. Much of Lin’s work the past six years has been dedicated to raising awareness and supporting research for conditions that disproportionately affect people of Asian descent — so-called never-smoker lung cancer among the most prominent. So when he suddenly became the poster child for the very same condition he was fighting to bring awareness to, Lin’s instinct to lean in and recognize it as serendipity was immediate and relentless. He has participated in stories, video segments and podcasts all over the world. He has found a book publisher. Bryant Lin — as soft-spoken and humble as they come — knows the importance of continuing to speak for as long as he can.
What was the most impactful part of your entry?
Both the content shared from a short documentary film Lin made with the help of a director friend and the details from the class he taught show the essence of who he is. The first is his way of telling his family how much they mean to him and the second directs those same sentiments at the students he teaches. Lin has some of the foremost oncological minds in his corner and his cancer has been receptive to treatment. But he realizes that taking anything for granted at this point would be foolish. He knows he is on the clock and plans to treat the rest of his life with the same type of aggressive intention that his doctors are using to attack his cancer cells.
What is one thing you learned from your entry/experience?
The only challenge was writing a story that still stood out among the many, many others being written. So many of those focused heavily on the class, so the aim here was to look more broadly at the life Lin had already been living and show how this sobering development kind of fit into the narrative this person had already been writing. The only thing Bryant Lin could’ve been doing to bring attention to this deadly disease beyond what he already was doing: contract it himself.
Contact: Alison Peterson
alison.peterson@stanford.edu