Yes, it matters that President Joe Biden has reportedly said he wants work events to end by 8 p.m. so he can get more rest. This will have implications not just for the upcoming presidential campaign, but perhaps the future of our democracy.
But my personal health habits and how they relate to my professional performance are not such a big deal. And yet, I kept a major health concern a secret from nearly all my clients, mentors, and professional colleagues for nearly a year. Many people do.
I made it a goal to only tell my supervisor and the organization’s top leadership about my second battle with cancer, and not make my year-long treatment the focus of any workplace conversations.
Their responses were mostly sympathetic. I was honest about my abilities to a select few other colleagues, but dishonest to a wider audience outside of my family and close friends. I never spoke about it in writing or on any social media platforms. Until now.
I felt that many of the people I worked with would be distracted, worried, or have a ton of questions about it, and since I still worked full time, they had no right to know about my personal life. They didn’t need to know about the grueling chemotherapy and radiation treatments I was going through.
I was also stricken with cancer, and my work gave me intellectual and creative joy, and the energy to escape internally so I didn’t have to think about cancer for a few hours a day.
Breast cancer is the second most common cancer in American women after skin cancer, with more than 4 million survivors in this country. This year, 310,720 women are expected to be diagnosed with invasive breast cancer, just like I have in 2023. There will be 42,250 deaths.
Of course, if your work is dramatically affected and you clearly need to slow down or quit, your employer and colleagues need to know why. In my case, I never stopped working, I just reduced other parts of my life and made sure to follow all the health protocols to stay healthy. And I did. I’m now cancer-free.
And yet the hundreds of people I worked with had no idea.

Michael M. Santiago/Getty Images
Among the books published in 2022, The Secret Life: How Our Inner World Shapes Happiness, Relationships, and Who We Are Michael Slapian, an associate professor at Columbia Business School, has identified 38 categories of secrets, with mental health and pregnancy being two of them, but physical health not included unless you categorize it as a “specific story.”
Perhaps it’s because discussing one’s health with one’s boss feels invasive and uncomfortable: A 2016 study backed this up, finding that sharing bad news, like a cancer diagnosis, with significant adult friends, family, and colleagues is a “difficult, personal process” with little guidance or support along the way.
However, many celebrities, including Olivia Munn, Shannen Doherty, Robin Roberts, Julia Louis-Dreyfus and Wanda Sykes, have gone public with their breast cancer diagnoses to raise awareness, and with such a large, globally influential platform, disclosing their personal health histories can be meaningful and make a difference.
Their confessions are worthwhile given the impact they have on millions of people in terms of breast care, diagnosis, treatment and recovery, and the transparency of prominent women like Kate Middleton is crucial to the health of so many people.
Other celebrities who have shared their physical exams, symptoms, and life-changing results include Bruce Willis and Toni Braxton, but their lives never seemed to be put at risk like so many others. Actor Chadwick Boseman died of colon cancer in 2020 without ever publicly discussing his health concerns.
While the impact of disclosing physical health conditions on a wider audience has not been widely studied, a 2022 study on the impact of celebrities disclosing mental health concerns showed highly positive results in terms of reduced stigma.
Generations of women have learned not to disclose pregnancy health conditions at work until 8-12 weeks into their pregnancy, but many continue longer and their choice is protected by federal law. Fear of being downsized, treated differently, or removed from key assignments or projects are very real concerns.
I also kept my three pregnancies (my three sons are now adults) secret from my employers and managers until three months in so that I could continue to get work and not be fired for not being able to show up.
According to the U.S. Equal Employment Opportunity Commission, the Pregnant Worker Fairness Act “requires covered employers to provide reasonable accommodations for an employee’s known limitations related to pregnancy, childbirth, or related medical conditions, unless such accommodation would impose an undue hardship on the employer.”
Whatever the diagnosis, members of the public can choose to share or not share their health status in the workplace.
“Hiding health news from professional acquaintances is a personal decision that should not be tolerated by a sitting or former president running for a second term. Both candidates need to be transparent about their physical and mental health.”
Yes, you need to know.
Michelle Weldon is an author, journalist, Professor Emeritus at Northwestern University, and Senior Director of The OpEd Project. Her latest book is What Time Does It Left for Us: Essays on Life in a Pandemic.
The views expressed in this article are the author’s own.
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Newsweek is committed to challenging conventional wisdom, seeking common ground and finding connections.