Gord Downie ‘like a Terry Fox in the modern day,’ says doctor
TORONTO — Gord Downie’s openness about his diagnosis with terminal brain cancer will leave a lasting legacy that makes him “a Terry Fox in the modern day,” says a radiation oncologist who treated the late Tragically Hip frontman.
“He is an icon for Canadians everywhere. What Terry Fox did for cancer lives until this day, and what Gord has done for brain tumours I think will live on for generations to come,” said Dr. Arjun Sahgal, director of the Cancer Ablation Therapy Program at Toronto’s Sunnybrook Hospital, in a phone interview Thursday.
Downie revealed his diagnosis with glioblastoma — an invasive brain tumour with one of the poorest survival rates of any cancer — in May 2016. He died Tuesday night at age 53.
In the 24 hours after his death was announced, donation activity to a research fund named in his honour “increased notably,” said Pamela Ross, executive vice-president and chief operating officer of the Sunnybrook Foundation.