STAYING ALIVE – An Oncologist Fights His Cancer

  • An urgent plea for hope: authentic, forceful, encouraging.
  • Wolfram Gössling, cancer doctor and cancer patient, offers a unique perspective on this threatening disease.

translated by: Doris Mendlewitsch

 The renowned oncologist and researcher Wolfram Gössling was in his mid-forties when he was diagnosed with an extremely rare and dangerous form of cancer. The disease he had spent a lifetime treating was now shaping his own life.
In this book he writes about the traumatic treatment process and his miraculous recovery; about his work as a doctor and his experience as a patient, husband and father of four children. He does not shy away from talking about his fear, grief and rage, and how these experiences have affected the way he treats his own patients. He knows now what his patients are going through, and what chemotherapy feels like, and he is not afraid to share his experiences with them. He explains how his illness led him to take the work he was doing in his research group in a new direction, and changed the way he trains his medical students.
Above all, however, Gössling’s book is a plea for hope. Because he knows: people suffering from cancer need positive stories. In spite of everything.

Contact Foreign Rights
Rights sold to

Korea - Kukmin Publishing 

  • Publisher: Rowohlt Polaris
  • Translated by: Doris Mendlewitsch
  • Release: 16.05.2023
  • ISBN: 978-3-499-00605-0
  • 240 Pages
  • Author: Dr. Wolfram Gössling

Please be advised that the book cover may be used in its original design only. Details and distortions are not permitted under copyright law.

STAYING ALIVE – An Oncologist Fights His Cancer
Dr. Wolfram Gössling STAYING ALIVE – An Oncologist Fights His Cancer
Fabian Zapatka /laif
© Fabian Zapatka /laif
Dr. Wolfram Gössling

Wolfgang Gössling  was born in East Westphalia in 1967. He moved to Boston 23 years ago. He has four children. Gössling is a practising oncologist and cancer researcher. In the autumn of 2013, he himself contracted cancer. He is now back at work as head of the gastroenterology department at Massachusetts General Hospital. He also directs a study programme at Harvard Medical School and conducts research on the prevention and therapy of liver cancer.