A new 13-film series follows patients and doctors from rural US towns to Fiji, showing how cancer care is changing worldwide.
Television has never shied away from covering issues around cancer, and rightly so. Channel 4 even dedicate a week of the year to it, but seldom does television paint as accurate a picture of the realities as Rewriting Cancer.
This week, the Union for International Cancer control (UICC) has launched a second series of Rewriting Cancer, a collection of 13 short films that examine how the illness is experienced, detected and treated around the world.
‘This new cancer series shows once again how important it is to hear from people affected by cancer, and how their experience can inform decisions that shape how health care is delivered,’ Car Adams, CEO of UICC, said.
‘They are real stories, from different settings, that tell a unique journey, but together they provide a clearer picture of where we are making progress in cancer care, why there is reason to hope, and where more needs to be done.’
The first series drew more than 130 million impressions and 35 million engagements on social media, with three million page views of the series website.
Series two, which has been produced for UICC by BBC StoryWorks Commercial Productions, covers three areas: education and early detection; gaps in access to cancer services; and innovations in prevention and treatment.
Stories include a mobile breast screening unit in rural US towns and the first locally trained gynaecological oncologist working in Fiji and the Pacific Islands.
Dolly, a cancer survivor featured in the film Developing more accessible treatments, said: ‘Diagnosis doesn’t have to mean the end […], sometimes it’s the beginning of a whole new kind of life.’
The series is available on the UICC website, which can be accessed here.
Image: Shutterstock
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