When local TV anchors Bruce Hamilton and Jeannie Blaylock each announced their cancer diagnoses on air less than a month apart this year, First Coast residents were reminded in a familiar, public way what many already knew.
Blaylock, a Jacksonville newswoman since 1985, had been a leading advocate for breast cancer screening since 1994. A program she began, Buddy Check, grew into an award-winning, nationally recognized brand. Yet, Blaylock – in her same calm, personal, service-oriented tone – informed First Coast News viewers in March that she had contracted that very disease. Hamilton, 70, another longtime, 25-year Jacksonville anchor at WTLV-TV, Channel 4, had announced a month earlier his abdominal cancer diagnosis in a similarly brave and public way. The scourge kept getting harder and harder to ignore.
“I have some news I want to share… Recently, I was diagnosed with an aggressive and progressive form of cancer,” Hamilton said on air February 17 – the birthday of his mother, who died from cancer in 2022.
“I intend to fight. I intend to win,” he said, his voice shaking at times. “I’m telling you all of this for one simple reason: I truly believe I can use this forum to provide answers to those who get that (same) diagnosis.”
The pair’s announcements serve as a reminder of cancer’s looming brutality as U.S. organizations mark National Cancer Survivors Month in June.
Each began cancer treatments. Blaylock underwent surgery and Hamilton started chemotherapy sessions.
“The new look is not unexpected,” Hamilton told viewers in a later broadcast when he appeared completely bald on TV. “It’s a side effect of chemotherapy, but it’s all good.”
The First Coast Offers World-Class Cancer Care
Fortunately for both, the area is home to some of the best cancer treatment in the world. Hamilton is being treated at Cancer Specialists of North Florida, where he is being cared for by Bijoy Telivala. Blaylock was diagnosed and underwent a mastectomy for her stage zero breast cancer at Baptist MD Anderson Cancer Center, which U.S. News & World Report magazine ranked the No. 1 cancer center in the U.S. in 2025.
The Houston-based center owns and operates eight centers in the U.S., and it also partners with hospitals nationwide, including with Baptist Health in Jacksonville. Here, it serves as a clinical partner in a facility owned by Baptist.
Patients see surgeons, medical oncologists, radiation oncologists, and support specialists in a single coordinated program.
Mayo Clinic Jacksonville is ranked by U.S. News in 10 adult cancer specialties, including colon cancer surgery. It is building North America’s first carbon-ion therapy center, a cutting-edge treatment for aggressive and treatment-resistant cancers. Proton therapy will begin in 2027, with carbon-ion therapy following in 2028, according to Jacksonville Today.
Trials of Surviving Cancer
With such great cancer care, First Coast residents can feel as though they have a good or better chance of surviving cancer. Sadly, not everyone does. Hamilton’s brother, Pete, and sister-in-law also died of cancer – all three within a couple of years of his mom.
Side effects from his chemo have been minimal, said Hamilton, who said he hasn’t had to miss many days of work. Typically, he rises about 3:30 a.m., begins The Morning Show broadcasts at 5 a.m., stays on air through about 9 a.m., works in the office until midafternoon, goes home, and begins the workday cycle all over again.
“Very quickly I adopted the mantra ‘I am going to fight cancer on my terms.’” he said.
The Benefits of World-Class Care
Like so many First Coast cancer patients, Hamilton and Blaylock have expressed gratitude for the qualify of care from the professionals who have treated them.
“(Jeannie) shared her gratitude for the physicians and care team at Baptist MD Anderson Cancer Center who are guiding her through the next steps of her journey,” read a LinkedIn post from the Baptist MD Anderson account.
“After all these years, Buddy Check has saved my life. I mean I caught it early,” she told Clark in April.
Hamilton has been profuse in his praise for the medical professionals on the First Coast. “Dr. Telivala and his staff have been nothing but amazing. Their care and support are beyond reproach, and it too has made a profound difference,” he said. ”If you have the right doctors who are honest, brutally honest with you and tell you nothing but the truth and include you in the decision-making process – you (can) handle the cancer.”
Whatever Telivala and the staff at Cancer Specialists of Northeast Florida did appears to have worked. Hamilton told First Coast Senior Living that in May that doctors now say his cancer is successfully in remission.
“It’s such a relief – not only for me but my family,” said Hamilton, who planned to let his viewers also know the good news.
“For many people who get the cancer diagnosis, they are gripped by the cancer diagnosis… (I wasn’t going to let that happen),” he said. “I am going to look at life a little bit different now.”
