Cancer patient advocate Meg Gaines to give John Kenneth Kyle Lecture April 27
April 22, 2009
Meg Gaines, who turned a successful battle with ovarian cancer into a nationally recognized career as an advocate for cancer patients, will be this year's John Kenneth Kyle lecturer at the University of Wisconsin-Whitewater.
She will speak about “The Best of Times and the Worst of Times: Getting Health Care in America” at 7 p.m. Monday, April 27, in the Summers Auditorium in the James R. Connor University Center. The lecture is free and is open to the public.
Gaines is a clinical professor of law at UW-Madison. In 1994 she was diagnosed with ovarian cancer that had also infected her liver. Her doctors told her the cancer was inoperable and that she should go home and think about the quality of her remaining days.
The mother of two toddlers, Gaines felt that diagnosis was unacceptable and conducted a national search for treatment. She eventually was treated in Texas and remains healthy today.
In 2000, she and several colleagues organized the Center for Patient Partnerships at UW-Madison. The center, a joint effort of the schools of law, medicine and public health and nursing, trains graduate students in advocacy and provides advocate services to the public to help people navigate through the rough waters of medicine, insurance and cancer therapies.
Susan Johnson, chair of the Political Science Department at UW-Whitewater and organizer of the Kyle Lecture series, said, “The issue of health care access is definitely something that is on the minds of many people given that President Obama has proposed new health care policies aimed at providing coverage for many of the 45 million people without any coverage. He has also promised to work on simplifying the process by which people receive health care.”
“Professor Gaines, given her personal experiences with the health care industry as well as her policy expertise and legal expertise, will be able to lend a bit of the personal to this very important discussion,” Johnson said.
The lecture series was endowed by John Kenneth Kyle, a 1922 UW-Whitewater alumnus who wanted to create a series to bring outstanding speakers with a strong connection to Wisconsin to the UW-Whitewater campus. Gaines' lecture will be the 24th in the series