Cancer Confidential: Backstage Dramas in the Radiation Clinic

"Interweaving stories of his father’s terminal illness and his own practice as a radiation oncologist, Charles Hayter sheds light on the hidden world of the interactions between doctors and patients. This courageous and splendidly written book deserves to be read by patients, their families, and healthcare professionals."

Philip C. Hébert, MD, Professor Emeritus, Department of Family and Community Medicine, University of Toronto, and Author of Good Medicine and Doing Right

"When you are being treated for cancer, your doctors become the most important people in your life. Charles Hayter’s memoir humanizes the most technical of cancer specialties and gives us insight into the physician’s side of the story. He is frank about how the personal plays into the professional as well as his frustrations with colleagues and the system – an interesting and refreshing perspective!"

Libby Znaimer, VP News Zoomer Media, Host of Fight Back with Libby Znaimer and The Zoomer

"With an extraordinary combination of patient cases, personal anecdotes, and dramatic dialogues, Charles Hayter introduces readers to the dramatis personae of medicine and cancer care – patients, doctors, and families – as he tells the story of his father’s cancer diagnosis and death, and his own long journey to an authentic expression of his identity. Cancer Confidential is as moving as it is informative and entertaining."

Robert Maunder, MD, Professor of Psychiatry, University of Toronto, and Author of Damaged

"Touching. Deep. Powerful."

Nancy Beal, Communications Consultant and Author of Alex Tilley: An Endurable Legacy

"The author and I share many things in common, but I was deeply touched by his acute sensitivity to the emotional dramas of oncology, which arose not just from his acting training but also from his experience with close family cancer and death. Fascinating insights as roles are reversed and emotion takes its place in the drama of life – and death."

Lord Michael Cashman, Member of House of Lords of the United Kingdom and Author of One of Them

"All the [medical] world’s a stage! In elegant prose, with Felliniesque flights into whimsical metaphor, physician-historian-playwright Charles Hayter describes his encounters with cancer, as a doctor and as a son, and how the experience changed him as a person. Sensitive to the arrogance and obfuscation of his clinical colleagues, he advocates for the underappreciated power of radiation therapy in cancer care and for truth in all relationships."

Jacalyn M. Duffin, Professor Emerita and Hannah Chair of the History of Medicine, Queen’s University

"There are many books written by surgeons and physicians about their life in medicine, but none are like this one. Most are faintly veiled tales of personal heroics, or writings about the wonders of medicine, but this book stands out as a personal story that is honest and sometimes raw, of patient challenges and loss, and an informative story of the place of radiation in modern cancer care. Charles Hayter is open about the personal pain in his family relationships, his distressing tensions with both mother and father, and his eventual recognition and revealing of his gay life. He could have told the story of radiation oncology and cancer patients without revealing himself, but that honesty is one of the powerful appeals of this wonderful book."

Jock Murray, OC, ONS, MD, FRCPC, MACP, Dean Emeritus and Professor of Medicine, Dalhousie University