Selma R. Schimmel is Chief Executive Officer and Founder of Vital Options International TeleSupport® Cancer Network, the southern-California-based international not-for-profit cancer communications, advocacy and support organization she created in 1983 when she was diagnosed with breast cancer at age 28. Vital Options was originally founded as the nation's first organization specifically targeted to address the unique emotional, clinical and psychosocial needs of young adults with cancer, between the ages of 17-early 40’s.
Vital Options has since expanded to include everyone touched by cancer. Vital Options became an international organization in 2000, committed to its mission, to facilitate a global cancer dialogue.
20 years after breast cancer, Schimmel was diagnosed with early stage ovarian cancer and has literally become the voice of survivorship. As host of The Group Room®, the nationally syndicated cancer talk radio show, Schimmel talks with more than half-a-million listeners affected by cancer each Sunday. In its 10th year on the air in the United States, the show also broadcasts regularly from Europe and can also be heard via satellite radio and Internet simulcast. Schimmel’s book, "Cancer Talk: Voices of Hope and Endurance from 'The Group Room,' the World's Largest Cancer Support Group," was published in 1999 by Broadway Books, a division of Random House. Recently, Vital Options launched CancerTalkSM, the first audio-visual Internet cancer radio show that combines audio streaming with visual aids.
Schimmel’s pioneering efforts with Vital Options International and The Group Room have been recognized by numerous organizations. She is a founding member and former vice president of the National Coalition of Cancer Survivorship, (NCCS) and in 1993 she was the recipient of the NCCS Logan Award for Service to Survivorship and was previously the first woman in the history of the Jewish Fund to receive the United Jewish Federation Health Industries Division Tree of Life Award. In 1999 "Talkers Magazine" named her one of the 100 most important radio talk-show hosts in America.
A prominent figure in various cancer initiatives and public policy issues, Schimmel has served in leadership positions with numerous cancer-related state, national and international organizations, committees and commissions, as well as a reviewer for the Institute of Medicine and National Research Council’s Meeting Psychosocial Needs of Women with Breast Cancer publication, 2004. Over the years, Schimmel has also served as a resource for major media on issues related to cancer and consumer health advocacy. She has been featured numerous times on The Today Show, 48 Hours, Primetime Live, 20/20, CNN, the NBC award winning documentary, Destined to Live, in the New York Times, Los Angeles Times, Washington Post, Newsweek, USA Today, Glamour, Cosmopolitan, among others.