During her long journalistic career, my friend Joanna Lyall, who has died aged 76, challenged preconceptions about what people with cancer needed to know about their illness. She also raised awareness about health and social issues such as bereavement, child carers and living with chronic illness.
In the mid 1980s, when she proposed a book to enable people with cancer to make informed decisions about their care, patient-focused information was limited. In Living With Cancer (1987), which we co-authored, Joanna dug deep into the emotional, social and financial challenges, and told the human story of cancer through patient experiences with her trademark compassion.
