The Orchid Room and Cancer (with Hannah Fry) - Numberphile Podcast 

Awesome. Dr. Fry is threading such a small needle here- NOT advocating against treatment, but DEFINITELY advocating for smarter application of treatment. She did great. I'll definitely check out the doc.

Had no idea what Dr. Fry was going through. So glad you are recovering, lots of love.

When I saw the title my heart sank. Then I thought, "Oh don't panic, probably they're just discussing cancer in general, from a statistical and mathematical perspective!" Then I started listening and my heart sank again. I'm so glad and grateful that you're cancer-free at the moment, and I hope it stays that way. And I think you're fantastic for documenting your experience, and using your mathematical expertise and media connections to draw attention to the problems with the system.

Always love hearing from Hannah. Especially with all she's gone through recently.

Hannah is a treasure, so glad she's ok!

Good grief, Doctor Fry! I'm so sad that you had to go through all this terrible cancer nonsense, especially in the throws of a world reeling from COVID. Here's to your continued recovery, health, and healing. I'm sure I speak for the whole Numberphile fan base when I wish you nothing but love and positivity in your future.

As soon as I saw the name Hannah Fry I had to listen. One of the most sensible, capable,and reliable commentators on science. Plus, as trite as it may be, she is wonderful voice.

Oh my god! I'm glad she's doing better. My dad ignored the signs until it was too late. I'm glad your outcome has been better so far. Risk is hard. And it's hard on everyone, doctors included. I'm glad she made the movie.

This is such a great interview. Hats off to Brady and Hannah for being able to discuss the taboo in such a down to earth and insightful way. It is so good to hear that Hannah has the all-clear - she is an inspirational person.

Hannah, you gave me a lot of great moments. Accept a small hug from an unknown guy. 🤗

I listened all three podcasts almost in one sit, great trilogy, all emotional in their own way

Not Hannah! My favorite Numberphile mathematician. Always a smile, funny and great to listen to. May the Math be with you!

such a lovely human being so intelligent its just lovely to listen to hannah talk about such a difficult subject

So glad you are cancer free x A world without Dr. Fry would be a lot less beautiful, fun and interesting ❤️

Dr. Fry is a gem of humanity.

Hannah, this has been so insporing. Thank you for sheding some light on such a topic

Dear Dr. Fry. Thank you!

My absolute best wishes and prayers for Hannah and her health!

Awesome! Thank you Brady and Hannah! :)

Thank you for sharing your findings and conclusions with everyone. They're so very very important, and really must be used to change the way these situations are currently dealt with, and at the very least they allow individuals to be aware of the problems they face, and how to make reasonable decisions. I'm also so very pleased that you're out the other end of this yourself. I'm sorry to hear that things could have gone better, but am glad that you have such a stoic and rational side to help with that, plus that you have a family...including kids already :-) Best wishes! P.S. I love all your work, especially with Computerphile, but generally too.

Great interview with a great guest , Thanks Hannah, thanks Brady.

Very useful. Gave me a lot to think about. Thank you,

Hannah once again you are an inspiration 🥲

Love you Dr. Fry and I'm very happy you're recovering great

Blimey, had no idea Hannah had been unwell - I remember a video she did with Matt Parker in my home town, when she was expecting, probably unaware of what was coming. Really glad she's OK !

My best wishes for you Hannah, from the depth of my heart!

A wonderful interview! Very pleased and grateful that Hannah chose to share her story. I expect the movie will prove to be a lifeline to many who unexpectedly find themselves in crisis.

Loved the intro, I have always been drawn to the warrior attitude of keeping cool and rational even under life threatening situations.

Wishing you only the best of health! You are in my prayers.

What an interesting episode. All the best Hannah.

Great interview, looking forward to the BBC broadcast.

Oh, I didn't know about all this. Belated best wishes to Hannah and her family. I had family members go through serious medical issues through the pandemic and it wasn't easy.

She is as lively in the interview as before, with her infectious laughter. An amazing personality, all the best to her for her health and to keep inspiring many people.

Hannah Fry is such a great communicator. Fascinating interview, but so sorry she had to go through this.

I have just learned - from a news story in The Independent - of Hannah's diagnosis, then found this podcast, which I have not listened to yet. Let's hope Hannah becomes one data point in the "Patient was given the all-clear, lived a long happy life" category.

Professor Hannah Fry is one of my favourite people. This was hard to listen to. But so awesome. Like the rest of her work and herself.

Hannah, you're an inspiration

So sorry to hear that, but glad you're okay. You're a huge influence in the world of science and mathematics

I found out my dad has it a few weeks ago and my immediate response was to rush to statistics because it is the only way I can process it. It's been a tricky few weeks. Though I don't agree with absolutely everything in this video, it has been comforting to hear from someone who has been through the process.

The moment that stood out to me was the doctor claiming that if his patients understood what they were signing up for, they wouldn't. If you really believe that someone's informed choice would be to not get a particular treatment, then it's blindingly obviously unethical to use their ignorance to trick them into that treatment. And in the other direction, if that treatment really is the best option for them (not for yourself as the person treating them) then their fully informed choice should be to accept that treatment - and if that's not the case, then you need to re-examine your measure of what's best for someone. It sounds like we need to revive the Hippocratic Oath.

the part about 2%-7% of people having cancerous cells and not knowing, and how that doesn't mean we got an epidemic were blind to. This reminds me about the story of some county's airforce wanting to reinforce the parts of the planes based on where returning planes had the most bullet holes, but someone pointed out that these were the planes that returned, they should reinforce the places that didn't have many bullet holes because that must be where the planes that were shot down got hit.

31:13 Yes Hannah, that is EXACTLY what you are saying.

Interviews like this make it obvious that we should have educated, smart and compassionate people like Dr. Fry running our public policies. Unfortunately that doesn't happen. Best wishes to you Dr. Fry and may you live a long and happy life.

Thank you for sharing this. 🌜♥️🌛

I had no idea she was ill, thank goodness she's doing better

This one moved me immensely. I have enjoyed listening to Dr. Fry explain maths in many videos, and I am happy to here she is well. Live Long and Prosper Dr. Fry! I agree strongly with her about treatments as you discussed in this podcast. Is there a way to watch her movie/BBCshow from America?

Wish the film was available outside UK as well. Going trough treatment myself it could help me with decision making.

I didn't know about her diagnosis. Although I don't know her particularly well beyond some of her math and popsci videos, it hit me more than similar news would have from some of my more distant family members somehow. I guess I count her as part of the "good group" of folks that simply shouldn't get news like this. Weird. I hope she stays well and remains her happy self!

No medical expert I and not familiar at all with medical care in the UK, but we do have patient advocates here in the US, at least in my region, that often fill in the gaps that are not uncommon I believe, from doctor communications. Especially for significant health issues. Best to Hannah!

Sorry to hear this. Hope it works out.

Big hugs Hannah, from a numberphile addict :) xxx

Dr Fry, I am glad to hear you are doing well, and I thank you and Brady for making this episode available. I am interested in seeing your film which, I understood you to say, will be shown at an unspecified time on the BBC. If I knew when and had a VPN I could watch it, but I unfortunately have don't know the one and don't have the other. Will it be available on demand for those who want watch it at a more time convenient for themselves? If so, when and where will it be available?

Bleedin' 'ell, didn't realise. God bless x

Her story makes me wonder why there isn’t some real-time pathology technique for sampling lymph nodes during surgery. There is a technique called Mohs surgery in skin cancer that does this.

I hope she stays well

Thank you for the episode! I know a book touching the similar topics including cancer risk assessment, but also how to teach probabilities so that people understand them better. It is "Risk Savvy. How to make good decisions" by Gerd Gigerenzer. I wonder if there are more books/resources like this?

Thank you for this. A family member has been getting numbers from doctors and being told they want to do this so they can see if its that, and yeah. I don't know.

Sometimes the most important number is 1. Glad you're doing well Hannah.

My oncologist was superb. He gave me accurate statistics and all the time I needed to make a decision. This meant that even if the decision turned out to be wrong with hindsight, it would always have been the best decision possible with the information available. Ultimately, it was very simple. The choice was between a single cycle of precautionary chemo resulting in

Body-building with the podcast... I was trying to apply to Computer Science or Applied Economy as Online-Undergraduates degree at London College! Oh no.. Cervix cancer?

If I ever have to go into that room, I hope there is a picture of Kuato from Total Recall.

Quick question here. How did you animate the waveform? Looks nice and I want to do something like that as well. Thank you ;-)

My grandpa always said, anyone extraordinarily beautiful, only has greater hinderances in less ordinary areas. Steven Hawking is a perfect example, a perfect person, who was not allowed to be perfect. None of us are allowed to be perfect. Math is super, super magical.

The anecdote around 17:00 made me think how bureaucracies like the NHS deeply do not fit to real humans, their capabilities and their needs. And when it's about healthcare, it's literally adding the insult to the injury. I fortunately live in a country in which healthcare is much freer, but I can't help being sad each and every time I remember how many millions of people are just stuck in such human-crushing bureaucracies.

Properly analysing the risk of all possible outcomes of all treatment options (including future treatment options) feels like the kind of thing susceptible to game theory/game tree analysis. Is this something that is done? is there a standard template for going it? I have googled it but found nothing. Asking for a friend who has a significant decision to make.

awesome

Everybody is talking about that disease but at the same time nobody is talking out about cause of the illness like heavy metals, chemicals from our food, air pollution and so on.

I know I shouldn't have chuckled at the phrase "cost in the most visceral sense", but I did

"Quick with a joke" ---- .... or to light up your smoke?

Language is telling. Among NHS staff, the word "consent" can be used as a transitive verb, as in: "Have you consented Mrs. Smith for her surgery?" In other words, consent is something you do to a patient, not something they give (in any meaningful sense). Box ticked. Next.

she's a goddamn rockstar

There are other countries that apparently handle this much better. Maybe looks at some of them to get ideas on how to promote change there.

At the end of the day it all comes down to time. How much time should a doctor spend with the patient? It can't be open ended . Most GP practices allow 10 minutes for a consultation. This is 10 minutes to take a history, do an examination and talk to the patient. Unfortunately the NHS needs more funds. Is society prepared to pay?

Lucky she had the two young girls already, some women don't get that fortune.....

Basically I think you should not have cemo unless its the only option as you say it recks your long term survival if you do get though

❤️

I never understood why people i general prefer a long life over a "healthy" life. If I have a choice of living about 10 years with no treatement or 15 years including several years of treatement that have a significant impact on my health I see no reason to go for the treatement.

The feelz, the passion and compassion… What’s the Kleenex? 😭🤧

My mind is blown by the stats she's quoting.

I think for this to be a fair conversation we would really need to speak to someone who, in the doctors words, refused the treatment and then had to come back once the cancer had spread too far. Maybe the families of someone that decided to do that and then died to a treatable disease. We've got one side of the story from someone who didn't end up needing the treatment and I really do empathize with it, but it seems wrong not to also hear the other side. Look at the general distrust of science in the population, people refusing vaccines and trying to heal themselves with crystals or prayer, buying snake oils and plant extracts instead of seeing a doctor. Steve Jobs wasn't unique he was just the highest profile case of this happening. People don't know how to make good, well-informed decisions in situations like this, Hannah even alluded to it when talking about the percentage of the general population that would accept chemo vs the percentage of oncologists that would.

Medicine's reliance on population statistics is a real problem . People (in general, and specifically my brother and a friend) don't understand them, The stats are compiled to make sense from the clinician's side rather than the individual.and I honestly not sure they can be applied to the individual.

It seems that the health care system doesn't really run on ethics. It largely runs on some successful treatment statistics. The number of successful treatments is maximized. Other issues the patient has during and after treatment (such as a disability due to not having a body part) are acted upon on a purely reactionary basis but don't make it into the planning of the system, other than allocating resources to them. It's a bit like washing your body with a drain opener gel, counting the number of killed bacteria and having an insurance plan for dealing with resulting wounds.

It's obvious the NHS system isn't working effectively. The problems mentioned are not isolated but systemic, many people encounter these issues. Sadly doctors understanding of statistics form anecdotal evidence is rudimentary, several stories exist about their inability to grasp Bayes Theorem. Their professional attitude to patients varies from excellent to poor ( deserving dismissal).

Re Hannah saying nobody asked her values etc. My sister died of cancer and she was given every option and how it would affect her. Unfortunately it was irrelevant in the end

I think the patients need to solve the math problem that reflects their situation to show they actually understand the risks.

Hopefully the last two years has taught more people to be extremely wary of the medical industrial complex. Early screening of cancers has not changed the death rates, but it has increased the number of people who receive incredibly damaging surgery and treatments which, as Hannah points out, can far outweigh the potential risks.

To a hammer everything looks like a nail. Physicians are influenced by this.

That's absolutely abusive - a doctor forcing non-consensual treatment on a patient because the doctor doesn't want to see them again. Completely selfish and unprofessional.

Great podcast. But do you guys make everything ugly on purpose? (Video)

I wish Dr. Fry had acquired the knowledge, firmly established in research, that medical doctors refuse to consider. Any young dietician, and all of us who have read the book, knows exactly how to avoid, or respond to this type of cancer, and many others. I am more than willing to say more, if anyone is interested.

Relisten to this interview, and replace the word "cancer" with Covid. There, I said it.

Next time please put the video instead on RU-vid. Thanks