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Heroes who are fighting colorectal cancer
DR. EDITH MITCHELL: Crusading physician
In her medical practice at Thomas Jefferson University Hospital, Mitchell specializes in colorectal and other digestive cancers, plus breast cancer. Nationally, she's a leader in the crusade to figure out why black patients' survival rates are lower than white patients' — and to fix that.
She's a retired brigadier general in the National Guard and has marshaled a cancer-disparities strike force at Jefferson's Kimmel Cancer Center that includes clinicians and lab researchers. This winter, Mitchell brought the Super Colon to town — a walk-through attraction like the Franklin Institute's heart — to promote life-saving colorectal cancer screenings.
VERNA COX: Rookie lobbyist
Cox has survived two bouts of colorectal cancer and, last month, her first trip to Capitol Hill in which she lobbied for legislation to pay for patients' cancer screenings.
Wearing a "Cover My Butt" T-shirt from the Colorectal Cancer Coalition, she met with Rep. Chaka Fattah in his office and Sen. Arlen Specter in a chance encounter in a hallway.
"We grabbed him. We caught his ear for a hot minute," she said. "And he said it was something he thought he could get behind."
