UNMC News

Curing cancer with a pill - Dr. Holyoke's story

Story contributed by The Nebraska Medical Center
May 24, 2012

Ted Holyoke, M.D., was a family practice doctor in Omaha for 32 years. He even watched part of what is now UNMC be built when he was younger.

"The med center has really been a part of my life for most of my life," said Dr. Holyoke, a UNMC alumnus and son of legendary med center anatomy professor, Dr. Ed Holyoke. "I started working there at the age of 13 and I guess I've been associated with the place to some degree ever since."

A trial drug prescribed by UNMC physicians and taken once a day turned out to a cure for Dr. Ted Holyoke's stomach cancer.

As a junior high and high school student, Dr. Holyoke was a lab assistant. In college and as a med student he was a research assistant in the department of hematology. He later served as a volunteer instructor for the department of family medicine.

But he never imagined after taking care of so many patients for so many years that he would eventually be a patient himself.

"I never really dreamed I would start a journey with cancer at the med center," Dr. Holyoke said. "I guess I was sicker than I thought I was. I didn't think there was anything wrong with me at all, but that's the way doctors are sometimes. We think we're invincible."

Watch the video above to hear about Dr. Holyoke's amazing cancer treatment at UNMC's hospital partner, The Nebraska Medical Center.