Doctor who treated own breast cancer dies at 57

DR Jerri Nielsen FitzGerald, who diagnosed and treated her own breast cancer before a dramatic rescue from the South Pole, has died, her husband said yesterday.

She was 57.

Her husband, Thomas FitzGerald, said she died on Tuesday at their home in Southwick, Massachusetts.

Her cancer had been in remission until it returned in August 2005, he said.

She was the only doctor at the National Science Foundation’s Amundsen-Scott South Pole Station in winter 1999 when she discovered a lump in her breast.

Extreme cold didn’t permit a rescue, so with guidance from United States-based doctors via the internet, she performed a biopsy on herself with the help of staff.

She treated herself with anti-cancer drugs delivered during a mid-July airdrop by a US Air Force plane in blackout, freezing conditions, until she could be rescued by the Air National Guard in October.

She documented her ordeal in the bestselling book Ice Bound: A Doctor’s Incredible Battle for Survival at the South Pole. It was made into a TV movie.

Nielsen FitzGerald spent the past decade speaking around the world about the cancer and how it changed her life, and also worked as a roving emergency room doctor in hospitals around the north-east of the US.

“She fought bravely, she was able to make the best of what life and circumstance gave her, and she had the most resilience I have ever seen in anyone,” said her husband.

“She fought hard and she fought valiantly.”

The couple would have celebrated their third anniversary next week.

In addition to her husband, she is survived by her parents, two brothers and three children.

Memorial and funeral arrangements are pending.

Nielsen FitzGerald decided to spend a year at the South Pole following the end of her 24-year marriage. She decided to travel for a sense of adventure.

On discovery of her breast cancer she was the only doctor for thousands of miles, stranded on the White Continent by weather so fierce that there was no hope of escape for at least four months.

Airplanes could not touch down as their landing gears were threatened with freezing. Instead drugs and equipment were parachuted to a spot near the base she stayed in.

Nielsen FitzGerald, linked by satellite to doctors in America, performed the biopsy with help from some of the 40 researchers she was sent out to tend.

She carried out the biopsy after consulting cancer specialists in the US via satellite.