UAMS Opens Expanded Cancer Institute

STEVE BRAWNER

UAMS Opens Expanded Cancer Institute | UAMS, University of Arkansas for Medical Sciences, Winthrop P. Rockefeller Cancer Institute, cancer, James Suen

Mike McCarty, a cancer survivor, speaks during the dedication ceremony and shows off a pair of drumsticks he uses to play in a band.

Planting Seeds of Hope

UAMS’ newly expanded Winthrop P. Rockefeller Cancer Institute will increase the research and treatment capacity of a campus that already sees 120,000 patients a year and is a world leader in the battle against multiple myeloma.

But Shirley Gray, the institute’s administrator, said that if the 300,000-square-foot facility is not needed for cancer, UAMS officials are prepared to find other uses for it.

“We designed it with enough flexibility that if we cure cancer, all of the rooms and all of the space can be recommitted to some other type of disease management,” she said without a hint of irony during an interview. “So from the beginning we said, ‘What would we do with this building if we cured cancer? What would we do with the space?’”

For now, the institute will continue treating patients from across the globe, a fact that was celebrated during the expansion’s July 30 dedication ceremony attended by hundreds of Arkansans, including more than 40 cancer survivors.

The 12-story expansion cost $130 million and was funded in part by $37.5 million in state general improvement funds and $35 million from bonds funded by the state’s settlement with the tobacco industry. An additional $12.3 million was awarded by the Winthrop Rockefeller Foundation in honor of Win Rockefeller, the state’s lieutenant governor who died in 2006 of a blood disorder related to leukemia and the man for whom the institute is named. The foundation’s gift will help fund the expansion as well as endow two chairs in the leukemia and lymphoma program. Another $10.5 million came from the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act, better known as the federal stimulus package.

The institute is connected to the 11-story Pat and Willard Walker Tower, which is undergoing a major renovation.

Some floors were to open by August 2, including an infusion floor committed to translational clinical research. Two more research floors are to open in 2011. Four floors are being left unfinished until future needs arise. The open design of the research floors is meant to encourage collaboration, with different disciplines sharing the same space. Close to 200 faculty are involved in cancer-related activities.

The expansion will give UAMS more space to provide patient care, while the open design is meant to foster healing. Patients can choose to undergo treatment in rooms shared with others or in private rooms. The building’s glass enclosure encourages natural lighting throughout all 12 floors. Patients can stroll through a healing garden or enjoy art installed with the help of a committee of professors from UAMS’ sister institutions.

Music from a grand piano at the bottom of a 12-story atrium can be heard wafting to the top floor. The hospital will invite pianists to play every Tuesday at noon, but otherwise it is open to any passerby of any skill level. One prominent neck surgeon on his way to another building recently stopped and played a jazz tune before returning to work.

While the dedication marked the opening of the building, the real stars of the show were the 40-plus cancer survivors sitting behind the podium on a late July day with temperatures rising into the 100s. They included Phil McCarty, who was diagnosed with stage 3 oral cancer April 13, 2000. Speaking with the enthusiasm of an evangelist, McCarty recounted the trials of a treatment process that left him 65 pounds lighter and unable to swallow his own saliva.

“What do you do when you get this news?” he asked. “You fight or roll over and die. I chose to fight because every moment you’re not fighting this cancer and killing all these cancer cells, it’s killing you.”

McCarty then talked about the hope and healing he had received at UAMS and the life experiences he had enjoyed since that diagnosis, including watching his daughters earn doctorate-level degrees, enjoying his new grandchildren, and playing drums in a band. Bursting with enthusiasm, he left the podium to hug his physician, James Suen, M.D., co-founder of the institute, exclaiming, “I love you, man!” in a tone usually reserved for comedy, but he was serious. By the time he was finished, he practically had the crowd shouting, “Amen!”

McCarty was a hard act to follow, a fact that both Arkansas Gov. Mike Beebe and former Sen. David Pryor acknowledged. Beebe spoke about the importance of UAMS to Arkansas while Pryor recounted how his son, current Sen. Mark Pryor, had overcome his own bout with cancer of the achilles tendon.

Following the ceremony, dignitaries and survivors filed into the building and tossed tokens into the “Seed of Hope,” a seed pod-shaped sculpture by University of Arkansas at Little Rock professor Michael Warrick. The hospital will give two of the tokens to cancer survivors on their last day of treatment – one to toss into the sculpture as a reminder to others that cancer can be beaten, and one to keep for themselves or to give to a person in need.