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46 April 14 • 2016
metro »
Managing ‘Dr. Mona’
Ilene Cantor is handling media requests
related to Flint water crisis.
Barbara Lewis | Contributing Writer
T
rained as a broadcast journalist,
Ilene Cantor knows a good story
when she sees it.
So when Dr. Mona Hanna-Attisha,
a pediatrician at Flint’s Hurley Medical
Center, completed research showing that
lead levels in children’s
blood had spiked since
the city switched the
source of its water sup-
ply, Cantor, the hospi-
tal’s administrator for
marketing, community
and public relations,
sprang into action.
Dr. Mona
Last Sept. 25, she
Hanna-Attisha
organized a news con-
ference to release the doctor’s findings.
About 100 reporters attended, and her
phone has barely stopped ringing since. As
the 344-bed hospital’s chief public relations
officer, she is the gatekeeper for all inter-
view and filming requests.
“The past seven months have been an
unprecedented whirlwind of activity for
Hurley Medical Center’s communications
department,” said Hanna-Attisha, known
at the hospital as “Dr. Mona.”
She said Cantor was a force for calm in
the storm. “She effectively steered the con-
stantly evolving PR coverage,” she said. “I
am personally grateful for her dedication,
professionalism, direction and commit-
ment to our community during this crisis.”
A New York native, Cantor studied
broadcast journalism at Northeastern
University in Boston, where she met her
husband, Neil, director of Jewish Student
Life for Hillel of Metro Detroit. They have
a 5-year-old son, Robbie, and are members
of Congregation Beth Shalom.
Cantor, 49, was working for a Flint
television station and doing an interview
at Hurley in 2005 when a hospital admin-
istrator asked her if she’d consider a job in
public relations. She’s been with the hos-
pital since and now commutes daily from
her Huntington Woods home. She’s been
in her current position, supervising a staff
of eight, since 2012.
She’s pitched a lot of interesting stories
and handled a lot of media requests, but
none with as much impact as publicizing
the research proving that Flint’s water sup-
ply was poisoning the city’s residents.
“When you’re the chief spokesperson
you have to be available around the clock,”
Cantor said. Journalists from all over the
Ilene Cantor
world called for information or to arrange
interviews with Dr. Mona, sometimes with
little regard to time zones.
“Since the day of the press conference it’s
been a very different world,” she said.
She set up interviews with media outlets
in England, France and Sweden, and host-
ed a delegation of environmental scientists
from Korea. She arranged for Dr. Mona to
be interviewed by Rachel Maddow for her
TV show, which led to Maddow’s widely
publicized town hall meeting in Flint.
Cantor also works with the Flint
Community Foundation, which established
a $100 million fund to help families affect-
ed by the water crisis, and the Michigan
State University College of Human
Medicine, which joined Hurley in develop-
ing a pediatric public health initiative.
“It has been a blessing to have Ilene
as my communicator partner during the
Flint water crisis,” said Geri Kelley, com-
munications director for the MSU College
of Human Medicine. “Ilene helps to shape
stories that effectively communicate Dr.
Mona’s evolving role with the crisis, from
research discovery of elevated blood lead
levels in children to ongoing interventions
to help Flint’s kids for years to come.”
Whenever she thinks things are starting
to taper off, the phone starts ringing again.
Cantor estimates she receives at least 50
phone or email requests daily for informa-
tion or interviews.
Not every proposal can be accommodat-
ed. One TV crew wanted to visit Dr. Mona
at her home to show her using water to
cook for her family; Cantor felt the request
was too intrusive and nixed it.
Cantor loves her job. “I went into broad-
cast journalism because I wanted to bring
people the news,” she said. “I’m still doing
that, but in a different way.”
*