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Baptist Health Sets Groundbreaking for Area’s First Regional Cancer Care Center

Baptist Health Paducah, Facebook
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Baptist Health Paducah, Facebook

  Baptist Health Paducah breaks ground Tuesday, Sept. 22, on a new $18.3 million Regional Cancer Care Center.

The event is at 2 p.m. near the Broadway entrance to the H. Earl Feezor Regional Radiation Therapy Center.

Construction is expected to be completed in fall 2017 on the two-story 44,000-square-foot center. It will feature a serene healing atmosphere with private chemotherapy rooms and family space, lab and physician offices. The existing 12,000-square-foot radiation therapy center, adjacent to the new construction, will be renovated.

“We have been offering the latest in cancer care since 1967,” said president William A. Brown, “but this unique center, unprecedented in our region, has been designed to pull all of our services together in the most convenient and comfortable new environment for our patients and their families.”

The center will combine the hospital’s highly-trained staff, latest technology and commitment to compassionate care.  “Our commitment to quality care has never wavered, but this project has evolved as we have listened to our patients, their families and our physicians,” he said.  “The result is that patients now will be able to valet park at the door, go in and see their doctors, get their labs and their treatments in one centralized place.”

Next to the new center, Baptist invested $3.1 million in new technology that can shorten radiation treatments from weeks to days. Stereotactic radiosurgery (SRS) and stereotactic body radiation therapy (SBRT) are available through the new Varian Trubeam linear accelerator, which replaced one of two linear accelerators. (Stereotactic means imaging markers are used to guide the beam of radiation to the precise spot needing treatment.)

With five medical oncologists, a radiation oncologist and a variety of surgical specialists, including brain and spine surgeons, advanced expertise is available locally, along with the advanced equipment.

“Sometimes our patients will go to academic centers, such as Vanderbilt, and the specialists there will say to them, “Why are you here? There is no need for you to leave Paducah,” Brown said.

Since 2001, Baptist Health has been the area’s only nationally-accredited multi-disciplinary cancer center, treating about 1,200 patients a year, including approximately 110 outpatients daily for radiation and chemotherapy.

The radiation oncology department, the first in Kentucky to be accredited 17 years ago, was re-accredited for three years by the American College of Radiology. Additionally, the hospital was awarded Women’s Choice seals as America’s Best Hospitals for Cancer Care and America’s 100 Best Hospitals for Patient Experience.

Since it first installed cobalt radiation in 1967, the hospital has a tradition of offering the latest treatment and diagnostic equipment, ranging from da Vinci robotic surgery in 2009 to 3-D mammography in 2014. Most recently, Baptist Health announced expanded availability of clinical trials through the National Cancer Institute (NCI).

Becca Schimmel is a Becca Schimmel is a multimedia journalist with the Ohio Valley ReSource a collaborative of public radio stations in Kentucky, West Virginia and Ohio. She's based out of the WKU Public Radio newsroom in Bowling Green.
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