Kelly Powers, a Fox News commentator and a podiatric surgeon who offered health tips and discussed medical news with viewers, with whom she also shared her own experiences with cancer, died on Sunday at her home in Colts Neck, N.J. She was 45.
The cause was brain cancer, her mother, Joan Powers, said.
Dr. Powers appeared as a medical expert on Fox News shows, including Fox & Friends, Fox Business and the talk show “Red Eye,” throughout the 2010s. She had emergency surgery in 2018 after doctors found fluid around her heart, starting a yearslong journey with life-threatening health crises.
In July 2020, she had a seizure and was diagnosed with glioblastoma, an aggressive brain cancer. Dr. Powers had three brain surgeries and received chemotherapy, radiation and immunotherapy treatment, as her family described on a GoFundMe page, but the cancer returned and another mass was found in her brain earlier this year.
Kelly Ann Powers was born in Yonkers, N.Y., on May 13, 1979, to Joan Marie Powers and Joseph Powers. Her mother said she was a “well-rounded” and “happy” person growing up who was always on the move.
She attended Baruch College in New York and then went to medical school at New York College of Podiatric Medicine. She obtained a master’s degree at the University of San Francisco and completed her residencies at Georgetown and Boston Universities.
In addition to her work as a surgeon, Dr. Powers began appearing on TV news programs early in her career to discuss medical breakthroughs and give health advice.
She became a regular on Fox News, where she shared practical health tips with viewers, including diet options and advice on body pains. During the height of the coronavirus pandemic, she would appear on Fox Business to talk about the virus and vaccine development.
After her diagnosis in 2020, Dr. Powers began to document her health journey on social media and spoke about it on TV. She called herself the “unluckiest lucky girl” because her cancer was caught early.
Amid her health challenges, Dr. Powers and her husband, Steven Doll, wanted to have a baby. But her cardiologist told her she should not carry a child, so they chose to use a surrogate, she said in a 2023 iHeart Radio interview.
Her son, Bennett, was born in 2021 while she was continued to receive treatments. Her parents, husband and son survive her.
During this time, Dr. Powers also used her platform to talk about brain cancer research and raise money for medical nonprofits and organizations.
“This horrible disease needs to stop, and we all need to just fight cancer in general, every type of cancer,” she said on Instagram in June. “Why is this even still a problem?”
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