“CBS Sunday Morning,” one of the longest running programs on television, is planning to air a feature on the Healing Arts program at the Fred & Pamela Buffett Cancer Center on Dec. 3. Locally, the show runs from 8 a.m. to 9:30 a.m. on KMTV (Ch. 3).
The Fred & Pamela Buffett Cancer Center is located on the campus of the University of Nebraska Medical Center and its clinical partner, Nebraska Medicine. The $323 million project opened six months ago with former Vice President Joe Biden, architect of the Cancer Moonshot initiative, coming to Omaha to speak at the grand opening.
The Healing Arts program at the Buffett Cancer Center is highlighted by the Chihuly Sanctuary – the most comprehensive health care environment structure ever created by world-renowned glass artist Dale Chihuly.
Other art features include:
* An 82-foot tall “Search” Tower designed by Jun Kaneko of Omaha and located at the front entrance of the cancer center.
* Leslie’s Healing Garden – an all-season garden where families can spend time and enjoy flowers, pine trees and heated walkways.
* Artwork from more than 15 other artists is displayed around the building, including therapeutic art and music programs, diverse art collections, and rotating art exhibits.
“Research has proven that healing takes more than just medicine,” said Ken Cowan, M.D., Ph.D., director of the cancer center. “The Healing Arts can provide patients a holistic view of medicine by creating a supportive and comforting environment. This can result in major dividends by helping to reduce the pain perception, anxiety, stress, loneliness and depression that can accompany cancer.”
In addition to letting the CBS crew tour the Healing Arts in the cancer center, Dr. Cowan showed how research and patient care have been integrated through knowledge transfer zones, which enable cancer researchers and clinicians to easily come together and discuss their findings and look for ways to work together.
The cancer center is named in honor of Fred Buffett, a first cousin of famed Omaha investor Warren Buffett, and Pamela Bartling Buffett, Fred’s wife and a baby sitter/nanny for the family of Warren and Susie Buffett when she was a teenager. Warren introduced Pamela to Fred, who died of kidney cancer in 1997.
Fred and Pamela Buffett lived in Chicago after they married, but they were fortunate to have invested in Warren Buffett's company before they moved.
Pamela never forgot her Nebraska roots. When the Buffetts’ oldest child, Susie, suggested that Pamela think about investing in the UNMC/Nebraska Medicine cancer center project a few years ago, Pamela answered, after checking with Warren, by making the lead investment.
Among the people interviewed for the segment were Warren and Pamela Buffett. Jane Pauley, host of "CBS Sunday Morning" and a famed TV personality and best-selling author, came to Omaha to do the story.
Warren Buffett was treated for prostate cancer six years ago at the medical center when he was age 81. In his interview with Pauley, Warren Buffett said, “What I wanted was good care, and I got it. You couldn't have had better people than I had here – from top to the bottom.”
Buffett said he remembers well when he got to “ring the gong” after completing the last of his 45 radiation treatments. He credited Dr. Cowan for having the vision to make the center a reality.
About making the lead gift to the cancer center, Pamela Buffett said to Pauley, “The joy of giving money away – it comes back many fold.”
UNMC Chancellor Jeffrey P. Gold, M.D., viewed Pauley’s interview with the Buffetts. He called it “an inspirational moment, one that will go down in med center history.”
As part of the cancer center feature, the “CBS Sunday Morning” crew taped Warren Buffett and Pamela Buffett having lunch with Pauley at Don & Millie's restaurant at 4430 Farnam St.
“CBS Sunday Morning” has been a fixture on the CBS lineup since 1979. It is an arts and culture program that is patterned after the New York Times Magazine, said Mary Lou Teel, the producer of the cancer center segment who has been with the program since 1985.
Pauley has anchored the program for the past 14 months. Prior anchors were Charles Kuralt (1979-1994) and Charles Osgood (1994-2016).
Teel said the cancer center feature will be posted to the “CBS News” website under “Sunday Morning” after it airs.
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