I ♥ Larry

As for me, I've got a soft spot for a short, bald guy with glasses who keeps his shirt on. He doesn't play a doctor on TV. He is a doctor. Yes, friends, I've got a crush on Larry Norton. And not just him. I've also got a crush on Clifford Hudis. And I have a little thing for Ann Moore and Yelena Novik too. And there are others —doctors who not only treat breast-cancer patients but also give free lectures on the latest research.

Given the choice of seeing a blockbuster movie or listening to Larry Norton, I would choose Larry Norton, hands down. It wasn't always like this. There was a time when my idea of entertainment was more like other people's and a celebrity was an actor on the screen. But now I'm a medical fangirl, and I'll drop everything to listen to a brainy guy crack jokes, tell riddles—and talk about a new her2+ drug, or extended antihormonal therapy, or immunological drugs for triple-negative cancers.

It's not just that the information is pertinent to me or that it's delivered with charm, humor and compassion. It's more than that. A patient undergoing a brutal regimen of surgery, chemo and radiation can feel victimized by the treatment as well as the disease. Struggling through procedures and side effects and digging deep to pay deductibles and co-pays, you can feel like the victim of a machine that's coining money from your misery. You can actually believe the rumor that there's a simple, free cure for cancer that's being kept a secret because it wouldn't profit Big Pharma.

But listening to Larry Norton and doctors like him reveals the kinder, gentler side of the medical establishment. When he took the mike at a SHARE event last month, he addressed the women in the auditorium as colleagues and friends — even though he doesn't know most of us. There was love in the room. Really. And I don't think I was the only woman that night who hearted him for coming out and making us part of the conversation.