Tom Farrington
Battling the killer within
Prostate cancer survivor and Dana-Farber Trustee Tom Farrington leads a support group that offers encouragement, advice and camaraderie.
Tom Farrington, a Dana-Farber trustee who is also founder and president of Boston's Prostate Health Education Network (PHEN), is determined to help prevent prostate cancer, or make sure it is found early, through his writing, speeches and other outreach efforts. He's especially eager to inspire black men like himself, whose risk of getting the disease and dying from it is highest in the world.
Diagnosed soon after losing his father to prostate cancer, Farrington was treated at the Radiotherapy Clinics of Georgia with brachytherapy, an aggressive type of radiation involving an external beam and implanted radioactive seeds. His 2001 book, Battling the Killer Within, includes his own story, profiles of the men he met there, and information about prostate health, cancer and treatment options.
Personally ruling out the "watchful waiting" approach some physicians recommend for the disease, he wrote: "While prostate cancer is often characterized as a slow-growing cancer that many men will die with instead of die from, this is not true in my family. I know it to be the 'killer within.'" In 2005, he updated the book and added a chapter on "winning," which charges each man to protect his prostate health early in life, armed with knowledge about his body.
Support groups sponsored by PHEN meet regularly at Dana-Farber and offer education, awareness and camaraderie to help black men with prostate cancer feel less isolated. In September 2005, Farrington took his efforts to the national stage when he convened the first African-American Prostate Cancer Disparity Summit in Washington, D.C., with support from fellow survivor Sen. John Kerry and Congressman Gregory Meeks of New York. He was also recently named a "Champion in Health Care" by the Boston Business Journal.
Farrington appreciates Dana-Farber's initiatives to bring prostate cancer prevention and early detection to the community through the Blum Patient and Family Resource Van, a mobile education center that travels to churches, businesses, health fairs and other sites reaching underserved populations. "When I had the concept for PHEN, I met with Dana-Farber officials immediately, and they were right there, supporting my idea," he says. "Since then, they have provided medical staff and expertise, space for our support groups, and outreach through the Blum van."
Prostate cancer is a major focus of Dana-Farber's work in reducing cancer disparities, because a black man's risk of dying from this disease is two-and-a-half times greater than the risk for other men, notes Anne Levine, vice president for external affairs. "With Tom's tireless advocacy, we have enhanced our education, outreach and screening to men of color, in addition to the monthly support group," she says.
Once a man belongs to a prostate cancer fraternity he did not seek to join, Farrington does not let him go. "There is an army of survivors out there who are critically important to our education mission," he says. "No one else can do what we do. Our aim is to prevent prostate cancer, or bring about an early diagnosis, one man at a time."
– Christine Cleary
Christine_Cleary@dfci.harvard.edu
