An Iowa City doctor who specializes in treating children with cancer is putting his money where his feet are this weekend. Doctor Fred Goldman, a pediatric cancer specialist at the Children’s Hospital of Iowa, is joining some 700 University of Iowa students in the dance marathon that starts tonight (Friday) at 7 o’clock and ends tomorrow night (Saturday) at 7 o’clock. Goldman says the goal is to raise 650-thousand dollars to benefit young cancer patients at the hospital.
Goldman says “That cause is probably even closer to my heart than the students’ but that’s what I’m out there to do — to help motivate them and give them some real personal experiences and how the money they’re raising actually does help.” Goldman is 48 years old and has been told by U-of-I officials he’s the oldest-ever participant in the annual 24-hour-long dance marathon. He says that doesn’t bug him.
Goldman says “Age is only what you make of it. I think I’ll be able to stay up for 24 hours dancing. Of course, I think I’m going to be taking more ibuprofen than the other kids out there but we’ll see how it goes. (Laughing) I may also be the oldest to ever die at the dance marathon too, so I hope we’re not writing an obituary for me next week.” Each student participant has to bring in pledges for at least 400 dollars but Goldman set his own fundraising goal at four-thousand dollars — and he’s been hitting up faculty, family and friends. He says he isn’t worried about keeping up with the hundreds of teenagers and 20-somethings who’ll be dancing the night away, but he does have one minor concern.
He says “You know you’re old when you think the music on the radio just isn’t any good so I think one of the difficulties for me will be the music that we’ll be dancing to, the new stuff a lot of the college students are really into. Probably won’t be a lot of the 60s and 70s music but whatever it is, I’ll be out there shakin’ like everybody else.”