New UNM Cancer Center Takes Treatment to Top
Posted on: Tuesday, 13 December 2005, 12:00 CST
Being diagnosed with cancer is never welcome, and being treated for cancer is never easy. The doctors and staff at the University of New Mexico Cancer Research and Treatment Center know that. That's why they are ecstatic for their patients when it comes to some big changes on the horizon.
For years, patients have received care in cramped, crowded clinics and taken their hours-long, chemotherapy infusions in a windowless basement at the 33-year-old facility on UNM's north campus.
But a new $50 million center scheduled to open near University and Lomas in 2008 will give doctors better tools and patients improved surroundings unavailable in the outdated, overcrowded facility.
Director Dr. Cheryl Willman says the new center -- announced on the heels of UNM's new elite designation as a National Cancer Institute -- will continue to offer world-class physicians and scientists. Add to that advanced treatment methods, putting it on par with leading cancer centers across the country, including Memorial Sloan-Kettering in New York, M.D. Anderson in Houston and Johns Hopkins in Baltimore, Md.
The new 122,500-square-foot, five-story building will replace the 48,000-square-foot clinic that was never intended to handle its 75,000 patient visits a year. Chemo patients will no longer be relegated to treatment underground. Instead, they'll rise to a fifth- floor deck near a roof garden with the Sandias as a backdrop. "The plan is for patients ... to be able to sit up on the fifth floor in a beautiful place while they receive their chemo," Willman says.
The center is designed to grow as the numbers of new diagnoses in the state increase -- and that's anticipated because New Mexico's population is about 10 years younger than other states in the region and as people age, cancer incidents rise.
New Mexicans who will be fighting the big "C" will no doubt be pleased with the new UNM center's cutting-edge tools and top-notch medical staff. Facing the Sandias can't hurt, either.
Source: Albuquerque Journal
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