About the filmmaker

Ruth Yorkin Drazen, pianist and health care executive, became seriously interested in filmmaking after her husband's death from prostate cancer in 1987. She had witnessed the futility of her husband's physicians who, in spite of their efforts to help him, were unable to change the insidious course of his cancer. The impetus to document aspects of this experience led her to pursue a path she had heretofore never explored.

In an interview, Drazen said: "I decided to tackle this problem and felt the medium of film to be the best vehicle. The cancer films I have produced (WHEN DOCTORS GET CANCER and CANCER: A PERSONAL VOYAGE) focus on physicians who have had a personal experience with cancer. Their honest discussions call for a new understanding of the plight of patients with serious disease. Though some patients cannot be cured they can be healed psychologically and spiritually when the caregiver is capable of communicating compassion and understanding. My aim is to convey stimulating approaches that can be of benefit to medical educators, physicians and patients."

Drazen's cancer films have been funded by the pharmaceutical company, Glaxo Wellcome, Inc. According to Drazen, "Glaxo believed that clinical medicine in the USA required new approaches and that the place to begin was in the training programs of future physicians whose medical school education must incorporate compassion with strong communications skills. Glaxo officials felt my work would help initiate a much needed dialogue between the caregiver and the patient, an aspect of practice becoming less available in American medicine.

Ruth Yorkin Drazen, who lives in New York City, was born in Washington PA, the oldest of three siblings. Her sister, Martha Berman, is the Chairman of the Board of Trustees of the local Washington Hospital. Her brother, Bud Yorkin, is a prominent TV and film producer/director, and Ms. Drazen is comfortable in saying that she pursued filmmaking on her own. She has one son, Myron, a clinical psychologist, who practices in Stony Brook, NY.

She received her education as a pianist at the world-famous Curtis Institute of Music in Philadelphia. When her first child died in 1947 of a rare genetic neuromuscular disorder, she went into the health field to become Executive Director of the Muscular Dystrophy Association. In 1960 she became the Executive Director of the National Genetics Foundation, a position she held for 17 years until she resigned in 1986 to care for her husband, Jerome, one year before his death.

Ruth Drazen was also profiled in The Philadelphia Inquirer.