Surfer Tim Baker and doctor Peter Goldsworthy on living well with cancer episode artwork

EPISODE · Dec 17, 2025 · 54 MIN

Surfer Tim Baker and doctor Peter Goldsworthy on living well with cancer

from Big Ideas · host Australian Broadcasting Corporation

Meet two men who will change the way you think about an experience most of us fear but will be touched by in some way.  In Patting the Shark, surfing writer Dr Tim Baker describes his wild ride to reclaim a sense of control and agency after a cancer diagnosis. Celebrated author and GP Peter Goldsworthy’s memoir The Cancer Finishing School started out as a journal but became so much more.They join Natasha Mitchell for intimate an intimate, revelatory, funny, and generous conversation about the Big C and how medicine needs to change. This event was hosted by the 2024 Queenscliffe Literary FestivalOriginal broadcast on January 22, 2025.SpeakersDr Tim BakerJournalist, editor, patient advocate, and facilitator of the Peter Mac Book GroupResearch Fellow, Prostate Cancer Research Group, Monash Biomedical Discovery InstituteAuthor, Patting the Shark: A surfer's journey — learning to live well with cancer (Ebury Australia/Penguin, 2022)Dr Peter GoldsworthyGP, author, librettist, poetAuthor, The Cancer Finishing School —lessons in laughter, love, resilience (Penguin, 2024)

Meet two men who will change the way you think about an experience most of us fear but will be touched by in some way.  In Patting the Shark, surfing writer Dr Tim Baker describes his wild ride to reclaim a sense of control and agency after a cancer diagnosis. Celebrated author and GP Peter Goldsworthy’s memoir The Cancer Finishing School started out as a journal but became so much more.They join Natasha Mitchell for intimate an intimate, revelatory, funny, and generous conversation about the Big C and how medicine needs to change.  This event was hosted by the 2024 Queenscliffe Literary Festival Original broadcast on January 22, 2025. Speakers Dr Tim Baker Journalist, editor, patient advocate, and facilitator of the Peter Mac Book Group Research Fellow, Prostate Cancer Research Group, Monash Biomedical Discovery Institute Author, Patting the Shark: A surfer's journey — learning to live well with cancer (Ebury Australia/Penguin, 2022) Dr Peter Goldsworthy GP, author, librettist, poet Author, The Cancer Finishing School —lessons in laughter, love, resilience (Penguin, 2024)

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Surfer Tim Baker and doctor Peter Goldsworthy on living well with cancer

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Meet two men who will change the way you think about an experience most of us fear but will be touched by in some way.  In Patting the Shark, surfing writer Dr Tim Baker describes his wild ride to reclaim a sense of control and agency after a...

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