The History of St. Jude Children's Hospital w/ Richard Shadyac
The Road to Now
Benjamin Sawyer
4.8 • 628 Ratings
🗓️ 24 November 2022
⏱️ 51 minutes
🧾️ Download transcript
Summary
On February 4, 1962, St. Jude Children's Research Hospital opened its doors in Memphis, TN with a promise to help victims of childhood cancer regardless of race, religion, or national origin. Since then the hospital has treated thousands of children from all over the world, and has played a vital role in increasing the survival rate of children diagnosed with cancer to more than 80%. And in more than five decades of operation, St. Jude has provided its services to children and their families for free.
As the CEO of St. Jude's fundraising arm (ALSAC) and the son of one of its founders, Richard Shadyac knows a thing or two about the past and present of St. Jude Hospital. In our conversation he explains the positive impact that St. Jude Hospital has had across the world and how actor Danny Thomas' promise to the patron saint of lost causes became a reality.
This is a rebroadcast of RTN #31, which originally aired on November 23, 2016. This rebroadcast was edited by Ben Sawyer.
Transcript
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| 0:00.0 | I'm Ben Sawyer and it's Thanksgiving morning of 2022 and Bob and I had talked about re-airing this episode of The Road to Now, this wonderful episode with Richard Shadyak. |
| 0:13.2 | We recorded back in 2016 about the history of St. Jude. |
| 0:17.2 | And I just started wondering when was the last time we actually shared this and it's so deep in our feed that it just felt like it's unjust. |
| 0:26.6 | So here I am on Thanksgiving morning with the voice recorder on my phone because I'm at my aunt's place in Florence, South Carolina, recording this intro to say, this episode is fantastic and we are bringing it to the |
| 0:39.4 | top of the feed to say thank you to St. Jude and happy Thanksgiving to you. Unless you're |
| 0:45.3 | listening a different day, in which case I still hope you had a great Thanksgiving anyway. |
| 0:49.3 | Check this out. Old school format and everything. Thanks for listening. Take care. |
| 0:54.6 | Coming up on the road to now. |
| 0:57.7 | Danny Thomas was a struggling actor and an entertainer, and he found himself in a position |
| 1:03.1 | where many of us have found ourselves in life. |
| 1:05.7 | Should we get a real job, or should we pursue our passion? |
| 1:07.9 | He walked into a church one day, and he prayed to St. Jude Thaddeus, who in the Christian |
| 1:12.8 | religion is the patron saint of hopeless cases. |
| 1:15.8 | And he said, St. Jude, help me find my way in life. |
| 1:19.2 | I will build you a shrine where the poor and the helpless can come for comfort in aid. |
| 1:24.1 | The very next day he got a job. |
| 1:26.3 | He went on to enjoy great success. |
| 1:28.2 | He remembered that promise and that prayer that he made that day, and ultimately that promise |
| 1:33.0 | and prayer manifests itself in the creation of St. Jude Children's Research Hospital. |
| 1:37.4 | So it's a remarkable story. |
| 1:39.3 | Back in the 1960s, a 4% survival rate for the most common form of childhood cancer. |
| 1:44.7 | That's the disease he chose to tackle first. |
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