The Emily Couric Cancer Center celebrated its fifth anniversary April 4 with a gathering of staff and patients.
Organizers said the facility “combines leading-edge technology with a warm, healing environment” designed with patients’ convenience in mind.
Associate Director of the center Reid Adams said the building brings together all the services patients need under one roof.
“This building is the reason for celebrating is because it's a fairly unique resource in the Commonwealth where it really pulls together the care that patients need in a single site,” Adams said.
Adams said the centralized planning of the center makes it a valuable space for patients and staff.
Before the building was built, patients may have had to go to multiple sites within the hospital system to get the care they need, Adams said. Chemotherapy, surgery and radiation, for example, could have been at different locations.
“That's all now coordinated here in this building so that the patients can get their care in [one] friendly, healing environment,” Adams said.
The celebration was held outside Flourish, the cancer center’s positive image boutique. Flourish offers wigs, head scarves and other items to assist patients as they go through cancer treatment.
Boutique coordinator Latisha Barnes said the boutique was created with donations to the center, after the committee researched and proposed that there be a space for women to shop for wigs and scarves in a welcoming, positive environment.
“We like to think it's like an oasis for them. [The boutique] isn't so sterile like being in a treatment room,” Barnes said. “We like to to give off a lot of positive vibes and positive energy, so hopefully when they step in the doors they just get an uplift and can feel our spirits wanting to help them feel better.”
After five years of operating, the center has plans to grow and develop new treatments and spaces for the community of the Emily Couric Cancer Center.
Adams said people come from around the United States to receive the unique forms of treatment the center offers in the form of clinical trial programs, which have doubled since the opening of the center.
“What that means is the fourth floor that was built out in anticipation of growth when the building was finished five years ago is now [at] the point where we’re beginning planning for that because we've grown enough to need to expand into some additional space,” Adams said.
Barnes said she thinks the future of the center is bright.
“I love it here today just as much as the day I started here,” Barnes said. “It's all about the people and getting with them and getting them back to a better version of their old selves.”
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