https://www.nytimes.com/2025/02/26/us/stanford-professor-cancer-bryant-lin.html

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U.S.|When This Professor Got Cancer, He Didn't Quit. He Taught a
Class About It.
  
https://www.nytimes.com/2025/02/26/us/
stanford-professor-cancer-bryant-lin.html

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The Great Read

When This Professor Got Cancer, He Didn't Quit. He Taught a Class
About It.

Dr. Bryant Lin, who teaches medicine at Stanford University, was
given a terminal diagnosis. He wanted his students to understand the
humanity at the core of medicine.

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[00nat-cancer-professor-01-jlgq-articleLarge]
Dr. Bryant Lin has terminal Stage 4 lung cancer. After his diagnosis,
he estimated that the drug he was given would work for about two
years.

By Kate Selig

Photographs by Rachel Bujalski

Feb. 26, 2025
Leer en espanolYue Du Jian Ti Zhong Wen Ban Yue Du Fan Ti Zhong Wen Ban 

Dr. Bryant Lin stood before his class at Stanford in September,
likely one of the last he would ever teach.

Listen to this article with reporter commentary

Just 50 years old and a nonsmoker, he had been diagnosed with Stage 4
lung cancer four months earlier. The illness is terminal, and Dr. Lin
estimated that he had roughly two years left before the drug he was
taking stopped working. Instead of pulling back from work, he chose
to spend the fall quarter teaching a course about his own illness.

Registration for the class had filled up almost immediately. Now the
room was overflowing, with some students forced to sit on the floor
and others turned away entirely.

"It's quite an honor for me, honestly," Dr. Lin said, his voice
catching. "The fact that you would want to sign up for my class."

He told his students he wanted to begin with a story that explained
why he chose to pursue medicine. He picked up a letter he had
received years earlier from a patient dying of chronic kidney
disease. The man and his family had made the decision to withdraw
from dialysis, knowing he would soon die.

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