We Stand For Care

Academy Award-winning actress Nicole Kidman and her husband, Keith Urban, made a rare Bay Area appearance on November 20, 2009 at Sharon Heights Golf & Country Club to support the Women’s Cancer Program at Stanford. The program, part of the Stanford Cancer Center, is MAKING A DIFFERENCE with the help of dozens of faculty in a comprehensive effort to IMPROVE survival and cure rates for breast and gynecologic cancers.

Jonathan Berek, MD, professor and chair of obstetrics and gynecology at the Stanford School of Medicine, and longtime friend of the actress, invited Kidman to speak to the crowd of 350 people about her firsthand experience during her teenage years when her mother, Janelle, was diagnosed with breast cancer. Her mother was successfully treated and remains cancer-free today.

“I think that was the pivotal point in my life because I was about to lose — or thought I would lose — the most important person in my family, the heartbeat of my family,” said Kidman, who then resolved to be COMMITTED to helping other women who faced the threat of cancer. “I so believe in the work of the researchers and scholars here,” Kidman told the audience.

Berek is helping Stanford provide BETTER MEDICINE and FIND ANSWERS by bringing together comprehensive research and treatment programs, in which doctors and scientists can work together with the common goal of curing women’s cancer.

He said he hopes the event will help call attention to the health needs of women and engage the community in Stanford’s work in women’s cancer. “We see this as a very bright future in partnering with you,” he told the audience.

For more information about the Women’s Cancer Program at Stanford and Kidman and Urban’s visit, click here.