CBS2 Los Angeles Helping Women Heal With Laughter Skip to main content Close Select your preferred language English عربى 简体中文 繁體中文 فارسي עִברִית 日本語 한국어 Русский Español Tagalog Menu Close Call 1-800-CEDARS-1 toggle search form Close Los Angeles, 12 November 2019 06:00 AM America/Los_Angeles CBS2 Los Angeles Helping Women Heal With Laughter Shelly Gossman, center, leads an improv class for Cedars-Sinai Cancer patients. Photo by Cedars-Sinai. CBS 2 Los Angeles recently interviewed Arash Asher, MD, director of Cancer Rehabilitation and Survivorship at Cedars-Sinai Cancer, about a new course aimed at helping breast cancer survivors heal using the power of improvisation. Improvisation-or improv for short-is the art of acting out a skit without preparation or a script. During each class, breast cancer survivors serve as actors and are given brief descriptions of the story they should improvise, and each actor makes it up as they go along. Asher describes the course as "learning to speak without a script, learning to react without a script and learning to feel without a script." The class is led by comedian Shelly Gossman, a seasoned improv vet who was a leading member of Second City in Chicago, one of the nation's premier improv comedy troupes. She also has writing credits at Saturday Night Live and A.P. Bio, among others. Grossman suggested starting the class to Asher after she faced cancer herself-twice. For participants, the ideal timing to participate in the class is once their initial treatment course has ended and their disease is stable or in remission. "We've learned that when someone goes through breast cancer, including chemotherapy, radiation and surgery, for many people, the distress actually starts when you are done," Asher told CBS 2 Los Angeles. As Asher explains, the distress comes post-treatment because patients are suddenly without a schedule of appointments and no longer seeing the doctors, nurses and care teams upon which they have come to rely. "It may seem counterintuitive, but that's when a lot of the distress begins," said Asher. "And that's the space where we really wanted to think outside of the box and find a way to support patients." Watch the complete story here. Read more on the Cedars-Sinai blog: Dressing Up for Chemo Related Stories RSS feed - Related Stories (opens in new window) View all headlines - Related Stories Cancer Patient Sails Again September 19, 2022 06:00 AM America/Los_Angeles Jeannea Jordan, who turns 80 in October, is a local sailing pioneer who began racing and cruising her 30-foot sailboat 25 years ago when few women were part of the sport. When a tumor on her spine ran her aground last year and her oncologist at … Read more Study Active Surveillance an Effective Option for Thyroid Cancer September 15, 2022 08:01 AM America/Los_Angeles A novel clinical trial from Cedars-Sinai Cancer shows that active surveillance is an effective treatment for many low-risk thyroid cancer patients. The study, published in JAMA Oncology, also showed for the first time that patients who opted for … Read more Study Patients Prefer Stool Test to Colonoscopy September 12, 2022 10:00 AM America/Los_Angeles Three-quarters of people prefer to do a fecal immunochemical test (FIT) rather than a colonoscopy for their regular colorectal cancer screening, according to a new Cedars-Sinai study.Unlike colonoscopies, FIT doesn’t require lengthy preparation, … Read more Show previous items Show next items Contact the Media Team Email: [email protected] Share this release CBS2 Los Angeles Helping Women Heal With Laughter Share on: Twitter Share on: Facebook Share on: LinkedIn Search Our Newsroom Social media Visit our Facebook page (opens in new window) Follow us on Twitter (opens in new window) Visit our Youtube profile (opens in new window) (opens in new window) Latest news 07 Oct 2022 - HealthDay: Black Women Less Likely to Get Laparoscopic Fibroid Surgeries 07 Oct 2022 - Faculty Publications: Sept. 29-Oct. 6 07 Oct 2022 - Fine-Tuning Organ-Chip Technology 06 Oct 2022 - KCRW: Want New Omicron Booster? Wait at Least 2 Months After Last Shot 05 Oct 2022 - Cedars-Sinai Schedules Free Flu Vaccine Clinics 04 Oct 2022 - Cedars-Sinai Showcases Hispanic and Latinx Art Newsroom Home