Navigating Life with a Brain Tumor
Lynne P. Taylor, Alyx B. Porter Umphrey, and With Diane Richard
Author Information
Lynne P. Taylor, MD, FAAN, is Associate Professor (appointment pending), Hematology-Oncology and Neurology at Tufts Medical Center in Massachusetts. Dr. Taylor received her residency training in neurology at the University of Pennsylvania and fellowship training in neuro-oncology at Memorial Sloan-Kettering Cancer Center in New York.
Alyx B. Porter Umphrey, MD, is the Director of Neuro-Oncology and is Assistant Professor of Medicine and Neurology at the Mayo Clinic in Arizona. She completed her residency and neuro- oncology fellowship at the Mayo Clinic in Rochester, Minnesota.
Diane Richard is a Minneapolis-based reporter, radio producer, and writer. Her documentaries have aired on radio stations nationwide, and her writing has been published in magazines throughout the Twin Cities.
Contributors:
Nancy Niedzielski's experience includes six years of caring for her husband, Randy, who died of brain cancer in 2006. She spearheaded the first-ever Caregiver Support Group through Seattle's Virginia Mason Hospital and continues to help new caregivers. To fulfill a promise to her husband, she became a spokesperson for Initiative 1000 that legalized the Death with Dignity Act in Washington State. She has given numerous interviews for TV, radio, and newspaper, and will be featured in an HBO documentary that focuses on the Death with Dignity Law in Oregon and Washington. She has been a public speaker at many political, religious, and medical group events addressing the needs of the dying. She is a volunteer for Compassion and Choices of Washington (www.compassionwa.org
), the non-profit organization that is a steward of the Death with Dignity Act. She is also an active volunteer for Providence Hospice of Seattle
and is an ordained minister.
Charles Nussbaum, MD, is section head of neurosurgery at the Virginia Mason Medical Center in Seattle, Washington. Dr. Nussbaum contributed information about the neurosurgical approach to brain tumors.
Astrid Pujari, MD, is a board-certified internist and credentialed medical herbalist with years of experience providing consultation about the safe and effective integration of conventional and alternative therapies. Dr. Pujari received her medical degree from Tufts University School of Medicine in Boston, Massachusetts. She completed her internship and residency training in Internal Medicine at the Scripps Clinic and Research Institute in La Jolla, California. She also completed didactic and clinical training to obtain a four-year medical herbalist degree from the Royal College of Phytotherapy in London, England. After rigorous academic and clinical examinations she was certified by the National Institute of Herbal Medicine (NIMH), the leading professional licensing body in Europe and the American Herbalist Guild. Dr. Pujari runs the Pujari Center for Spiritually Centered and Integrative Medicine in Seattle, Washington and is a consultant at the Virginia Mason Medical Center Cancer Institute.
Huong Pham, MD, is a board-certified radiation oncologist with a special interest in treating central nervous system (CNS) tumors, having completed a radiation oncology CNS tumor fellowship at University of California, San Francisco in 1997. She was an assistant professor and co-director of the Gamma Knife radiosurgery program at Case Western Reserve University from 1997 to 2000 before joining Virginia Mason Medical Center in 2001. Currently, she is the section head of radiation oncology and an active member of the neuro-oncology program at Virginia Mason.
