When actor Forest Whitaker's grandmother was diagnosed with brain cancer in the late 1990s, she was told her tumor was inoperable and that she had only months to live.
Forest Whitaker, left, credits Dr. Keith Black with giving his grandmother an extra 10 years of life. With this grim news, Whitaker and his family turned to Dr. Keith Black, chairman of neurosurgery at Cedars-Sinai Medical Center in Los Angeles, California, and asked for a second opinion.
"He looked at the data and he met with [my grandmother] and decided to move forward with the surgery," Whitaker said. "And what was supposed to be two months turned into a decade. ... She really lived a full and complete life. And I think that last decade of it, Dr. Black was responsible for."
Black performs close to 300 tumor operations a year at Cedars-Sinai. In addition to heading up the neurosurgery department, he is director of Cedar-Sinai's Maxine Dunitz Neurosurgical Institute.
His peers are so impressed with his work that they have consistently voted him one of America's best doctors. Black has even graced a cover of Time magazine for his skills.
Black said he can't imagine any other profession. "I've been fascinated with science from as long as I can remember," he said. "My wife complains that I work too hard. But this is not work to me. I absolutely love what I do."
Whitaker calls Black a hero, not just for the help he provided his grandmother, but for Black's groundbreaking research to prevent others from suffering from the disease.
"His team's goal is to try to get to noninvasive surgery, to try to be able to find a cure and try to isolate things so that people can live really functional lives," Whitaker said.
Whitaker and his wife, Keisha, along with other celebrities and prominent Los Angeles-area residents have been instrumental in raising millions of dollars for Black's research.
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CNN Producer Lyda Ely contributed to this report.
© 2007 Cable News Network
