New University of New Mexico Center Will Treat All Cancers
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It has a long name, and a long list of services it can provide.
The official name for a new cancer center currently under construction in Albuquerque is the Comprehensive Cancer Treatment and Clinical Research Facility at the University of New Mexico. The $92 million, five-story facility is scheduled to open in February 2009 on the UNM campus.
“That long name is how we are referring to the facility right now, but we might change it simply to the UNM Cancer Center before it opens,” says Leann Holt, director of marketing and communications for the cancer center. “The UNM Cancer Center is how most people are referring to it anyway, but we still have the official name in place for the time being.”
Even though the new hospital’s name is in question, its list of services is not. The center will be able to treat anyone in New Mexico who has cancer.
“It includes all cancers from the brain to the toes – that’s a good way to put it,” Holt says. “We will not turn anyone away. It will be a state-of-the-art facility that can give all New Mexicans the cancer care they deserve.”
The UNM campus has actually been home to an existing two-story cancer clinic that opened in the 1970s, but a new building has been needed for several years.
“The clinic was designed to see about 100 cancer patients each day, but we are currently seeing 350 patients daily,” Holt says. “We are bursting at the seams, so the new building can’t get here fast enough.”
The new facility will be designated as a National Cancer Institute, making it the only hospital in the state to hold that distinction.
“The NCI designation allows us to network with the best cancer institutes in the nation, including M.D. Anderson, Sloan-Kettering and the Mayo Clinic,” Holt says. “So if anything rare or unusual comes up that UNM physicians have a question about, we have access to the best cancer minds in the country.”
Besides clinical treatment, the UNM facility will also be a research facility. The staff will be made up of 110 researchers to go along with the 65 doctors who head up teams in every cancer specialty.
“The new building will have everything under one roof, including four radiation units that will provide tomotherapy treatments,” Holt says. “Tomotherapy delivers very precise dosages of radiation that result in fewer treatments and less side effects for patients.”
Several of the center’s architectural amenities will feature American Indian/southwestern themes, including walls painted in the colors of traditional native healing plants.
“We want to offer treatment for the spirit as well as the body,” Holt says. “That is what New Mexicans are comfortable with, so that is exactly what we are going to do.”
Story by Kevin Litwin
