As a professor of oncology for over two decades, Benjamin Corn’s most potent medicine that he has prescribed his patients is hope. It was a series of events early in his life that taught him the important role hope plays in affecting medical outcomes and in contributing to overall quality of life.
When Corn was only 11 years old, his father passed away from prostate cancer. The painful news was communicated via a matter-of-fact phone call from the hospital that was lacking in both empathy and emotion. Corn became determined to find the cure for cancer and knew that he would pursue a career in medicine. At age 17, during one of his first patient visits as a medical student, he stood alongside his senior physician, who delivered a diagnosis of terminal cancer to a patient. Again, Corn witnessed a conversation devoid of any empathy, compassion or desire to connect with the patient. Corn was so outraged that he later returned to the room to apologize to the patient for the doctor’s behavior. He made a vow to himself that his mission as a medical professional would be focused on not just curing illness, but on helping patients cope with disease.
In 1997 Corn and his wife, Dvora, made aliyah from Cherry Hill, New Jersey. During the first few years of his life in Israel, Corn served as a CEO of a biotech company before serving as the chairman of radiation oncology at Tel Aviv’s Ichilov Hospital, and then as deputy director of the Cancer Center and the chairman of the department of radiation oncology at Shaare Zedek Medical Center in Jerusalem. Patients from around the country and even around the globe sought Corn’s medical advice, which integrated scientific knowledge with emotion.
A component of this approach is what Corn calls “shared decision making,” whereby the medical professional plays an active role in the decision-making process of the patient and is continuously present to help the patient process the diagnosis and navigate the next steps. He works according to a theory knows as “hope theory,” which was pioneered by positive psychologist Rick Snyder. According to this theory, in order for hope to thrive, the individual must (1) choose a goal that is both plausible and meaningful, (2) find a pathway to arrive at that goal and (3) have the drive or agency to pursue that goal. Corn helps his patients identify what their life goals are so that they can decide together on the most appropriate treatment options to arrive at those goals. In some cases when medical treatment is not advised, Corn will work with the patient on identifying a new hobby or pursuing an educational opportunity that he or she had always dreamed about. “You’ll never hear me say that we have nothing to do for you,” Corn said. “We always have something to do.”
In 2004 Corn and his wife, who is a family therapist, together with other colleagues established the nonprofit organization Gisha L’Chaim or Life’s Door, whose mission is “to empower hope, meaning, and quality of life throughout illness, aging, and at the end of life.” The NGO has offered online and in-person workshops to enhance hope and meaning in the lives of tens of thousands of individuals. In addition to the ill and their family members and caretakers, Corn and his team have worked with the Israel Prison Service to help released prisoners regain hope and reacclimate. After the October 7 massacres, Corn was approached by the Ministry of Health to work with military and civilian trauma victims.
Corn is also pioneering hope theory for communities and traveling around the world to run large workshops. “For a community to grow and to develop, it is very healthy for them to look at what is important for them and what goals do they want to set,” Corn explained. Workshops are typically two hours long and are aimed at diving deep into questions about the future trajectory of the community.
Currently Corn is focused on the research side of the discipline. He has published numerous papers on hopefulness and travels around the world to speak about this approach and to raise funds to support his NGO. He is aspiring to build an institution for the study of hope at Hebrew University, which would be the first institution of its kind for hope theory that he is aware of.
Corn is excited to be part of the burgeoning field, and sees it as very fitting that Israel is leading the way in the study of hope. “Israelis are at the vanguard of medical research,” he said. “It really gives me nachat ruach.”
For more information on Life’s Door, visit www.lifesdoor.org.
Alisa Bodner is a Fair Lawn native who immigrated to Israel over a decade ago. She is a nonprofit management professional who enjoys writing in her free time.
