University of Arizona Health Sciences
Patient Storytelling Campaign
MY ROLE
Producing · Writing · Directing · Editing · Editorial Strategy
Silver Darmer learned to navigate in a place where there weren’t many landmarks.
As a young naval flight officer in the 1960s, he flew missions over Antarctica as part of Operation Deep Freeze, helping transport scientists across one of the most remote places on Earth. Sometimes the sun was his only point of reference. More than 50 years later, Silver found himself navigating something very different.
In 2016, a routine doctor’s visit led to a diagnosis of pancreatic cancer. Silver went through chemotherapy, radiation and Whipple surgery, followed by more chemotherapy. For a while, the treatment worked. Two years later, the cancer returned and had spread to his lungs.
By the time Silver met Dr. Rachna Shroff at the University of Arizona Cancer Center in 2022, conventional treatments were no longer working. She offered him the opportunity to participate in a clinical trial combining immunotherapy with a targeted therapy, an approach developed from research into why pancreatic tumors can resist the body’s immune response.
For Silver, it worked. Many of the cancerous spots in his lungs either shrank or disappeared, with no new cancer developments reported at the time the story was published.
The trial worked. Silver felt well enough to travel again, spend time with his daughters and get back to the things he enjoyed.
THE PROJECT
We developed Silver’s story as an integrated content package that included the short film, editorial article and social media clips. The story later traveled beyond our own channels when it was republished by the international oncology publication OncoDaily.
Silver once navigated by the sun, moon and stars. At 79, he was still traveling, spending time with his daughters and looking forward to what came next.