IN 1964, when John Wayne referred to his lung cancer diagnosis, he called the disease the Big C. More than 20 years later, when Gilda Radner faced a diagnosis of ovarian cancer, she wrote in her memoir that no one wanted to use the word cancer , even as she was scheduled for surgery to remove it. Over the last several decades, however, attitudes toward and treatment of cancer have changed. Survival rates for several types of cancer have improved dramatically. As I wrote in my own book Tumor , “Millions of people are living with or beyond cancer, carrying the diagnosis, sometimes carrying the disease, with them the rest of their lives.” In fact, there were an estimated 15.5 million cancer survivors living in the United States in 2016, according to the National Cancer Institute. A patient’s rights to privacy, information, and decision-making have expanded, as well. So patients and their families are more involved in the course of an illness. In addition, social media has blurred the bou...