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A Regional Resource
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The Siteman
Cancer Center promises to provide the latest and greatest in cancer
care.
By Peter Downs
Cancer care in St. Louis has moved into the big leagues. With a
new facility for the Alvin J. Siteman Cancer Center at Barnes-Jewish
Hospital and Washington University School of Medicine opening this
month, and a new designation as a National Cancer Institute Cancer
Center, “it is like moving from Division III to Division I in college
athletics,” says Ron Evans, president of Barnes-Jewish Hospital.
The move was a long time in the making—26 years, according to Evans—but
it is certain to have a big impact on both health care in the St.
Louis region, and the region’s economic development.
NCI Endorsement
The designation from the National Cancer Institute (NCI) “means
funds for us to become greater, for us to grow,” says William Peck,
chancellor of the medical school. And, just as importantly, “it
will allow us to provide the best, the latest, the most sensitive,
and the most personal care...defining the state of the art in cancer
care.”
Specifically, the NCI designation means the Siteman Cancer Center
will get $4 million in NCI funds over three years, and patients
will have access to the newest drugs and treatment regimens, which
are only given to NCI-designated cancer centers for testing. Currently,
“there are more than 250 clinical trials” of new anti-cancer agents
available only through NCI cancer centers, says Dr. Timothy Eberlein,
director of the Siteman Cancer Center, who was recruited from the
famed Harvard Medical School, where he was the Richard E. Wilson
Professor of Surgery. He also served as vice chairman for research
in the Department of Surgery at Brigham and Women’s Hospital. Eberlein
continues, “There also are genetic studies open only to NCI-designated
centers as well.”
Already, the 235 doctors at Siteman see 5,000 new patients and 2,400
follow-up patients each year. They participate in 250 clinical trials,
and are getting $85 million in research and training grants. Now,
they’ll probably get even busier.
Although Siteman is the 61st NCI-designated cancer center, it is
the only one in Missouri, and the only one within 240 miles of St.
Louis. The closest neighboring NCI Cancer Centers are in West Lafayette
and Indianapolis, Indiana; Iowa City; Omaha; Memphis; and two in
Chicago, but the latter two “are much smaller,” Eberlein says. There
are none in Arkansas, Kansas, Oklahoma or Kentucky.
Above:
Timothy J. Eberlein, M.D., Director of the Siteman Cancer Center
at Washington University School of Medicine and Barnes-Jewish Hospital.
Gwen Randall, a cancer patient who has had three bouts of breast
cancer, five courses of chemotherapy and two courses of radiation,
says “I take comfort in knowing that we have a facility like Siteman
that is close to me.”
Eberlein expects the NCI-designation will bring more patients to
Siteman, and more research. “We’ll probably see an increase in trials
here, and in unique programs that attract interest from biotech
and pharmaceutical investors. We’ll be like a Nidus for biomedicine”
he says, likening Siteman to the business incubator Monsanto established
for start-up plant science companies.
Together with the newly-opened Stowers Institute in Kansas City,
Siteman’s NCI designation helps build Missouri’s growing reputation
as a center for biomedical research.
The Stowers Institute for Medical Research opened on November 1,
2000, with an endowment of $550 million and a new $230 million research
facility. Modeled after the Howard Hughes Medical Institute (HHMI),
it will fund basic research into understanding how genes and proteins
regulate life, but unlike HHMI, all the research will have to be
performed onsite at its facility in Kansas City.
Siteman’s New Facility
The construction of a new $46 million cancer care facility for the
Siteman Cancer Center was instrumental for getting the NCI’s support,
but was not by itself enough to secure that support, Peck says.
Above:
William A. Peck, M.D., executive vice chancellor for medical
affairs and dean of the School of Medicine.
Facilities make-up one of the six essential organizational and administrative
characteristics the NCI looks at in awarding its cancer center designation
and grants. The others are: a clearly defined scientific focus on
cancer research; a strong commitment of the parent institution to
the cancer center; joint activities, collaborations and interactions
within and among the different parts of the cancer center program;
a full-time, or nearly full-time director who is a highly qualified
scientist and administrator with the leadership experience and authority
appropriate to the managing of a complex organization; and research
activity in a variety of disciplines and a high degree of coordination,
interaction and collaboration among cancer center members.
Where the new facility will have a significant impact, Eberlein
says, “is on the way we deliver care.” Specifically, the new facility
is both more welcoming to patients, and it encourages the kind of
collaborative, multidisciplinary approach valued by the NCI.
“One of the criticisms of big academic medical centers is they’re
very complex and very difficult for patients to find their way,
it is very intimidating. Here we have consolidated 32 different
places of interaction with patients into one building, built from
patients’ points of view. Hopefully, we’ve made it easy to find
and convenient. Parking is in a garage across the street; the bridge
that brings you across the street ends at the Cancer Center information
desk, and there is an elevator that only stops at the cancer floor.”
The Siteman Cancer Center occupies more than 107,000 square feet
in the new Center for Advanced Medicine, including the lower level
and the seventh floor. The lower level houses the radiation oncology
center with eight linear accelerators used for radiation therapy
and two advanced CT simulators. “All of our radiology will be totally
digitalized,” Eberlein says. “Anything you have done within our
facility or institution will be immediately available on computer,
so doctors can blow it up, compare one x-ray with another, etc.
It is a tremendous convenience that will allow for better patient
care.”
The seventh floor houses outpatient services in modules designed
both to facilitate a multidisciplinary team approach to care and
for flexibility to accommodate changing health care needs.
Before, the approximately 150 physicians who provided care to cancer
patients were spread all over in different areas, and each specialty
was in a different place. “Medical oncology was on one part of the
campus, surgical oncology on a different part,” Eberlein says. “If
you were seeing three or four different doctors because of your
particular problem, you could see me in one building, then go to
a totally different building to see someone else, then go to another
one to see a third doctor. Now, we will bring the doctors to you.”
In the new team approach, seeing multiple doctors will become the
norm rather than the exception. A medical oncologist, a radiation
oncologist, a surgical oncologist, and a psychologist and whatever
other specialists are necessary will work together to develop a
specific treatment plan for each individual patient. “We believe
this will give better and more efficient cancer care,” Eberlein
says.
It also will be friendlier care. “This is not a typical medical
care delivery building,” Eberlein explains. “It is not a big, imposing,
intimidating place. It is more like a Four Seasons Hotel with a
big skylight and a pleasant, easy atmosphere.”
The development of the Siteman Cancer Center was made possible,
in part, by a donation of $35 million from Alvin J. and Ruth Siteman
in 1996. Existing, but physically separate anti-cancer efforts and
doctors’ offices were then collectively renamed the Siteman Cancer
Center, and work proceeded towards construction of a common facility
and NCI designation.
Peter Downs is a free-lance writer and editor of Construction
News & Review. |
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