Samaritan Health Services

New technology gives breast cancer patients more flexibility

When most women are diagnosed with early stage breast cancer, they are typically given the choice between mastectomy or breast-conserving lumpectomy and radiation therapy.

In January 2010, Samaritan Regional Cancer Center began offering an alternative therapy called Accelerated Partial Breast Irradiation (APBI) to female cancer patients who meet specific criteria, thanks to funding from the Good Samaritan Hospital Foundation. APBI significantly reduces the treatment time for radiation therapy and lessens the treatment area to just the lumpectomy site.

With this new technology, which was made possible through foundation funding, the cancer center can combine the advantages of therapeutic doses to the tumor with minimal radiation exposure to healthy tissue. This cutting-edge therapy was recognized by R&D Magazine with its 2008 “Most Innovative New Product” award for significant technological achievement.

Construction begins on healing garden

Construction is now underway on what will become a beautiful new centerpiece for Good Samaritan Regional Medical Center: a large healing garden located at the heart of the hospital campus.

Literally hundreds of plantings are on the blueprint for the healing garden, meandering along the east and southeast perimeters of the campus. Varying in height and structural detail, the azaleas, dogwoods, magnolias, birches, hydrangeas, grasses and dozens of other plants will form an eye-catching, idyllic setting for patients, families and employees alike.

“Our basic premise in designing this garden was to create an outdoor space, with a Northwest feel, where people could relax,” said Linda Howard, landscape designer with Devco Engineering, Inc.“We envisioned patients and their families finding comfortable, private areas where they could contemplate nature and weigh important health care decisions.”

Also included in the garden design are protected seating areas, a small play area for children, birdbaths, curving walking paths and a dry stream bed to act both as an attractive landscape feature and as a practical storm drainage solution. One of the garden’s most prominent features will be a 12- to 15-foot-diameter water fountain, comprising shallow and calm standing water, as well as cascading, splashing water.

“The idea is to engage all of one’s senses,” Howard said. “We hope the sounds and sights and fragrances will be a treat for the ears and eyes. We’d like to think people can enter the garden, take a nice deep breath, and get in touch with themselves and their feelings.”

As for entering the garden, that’s one of the highpoints of the garden design, according to Joseph Shumate, the hospital’s construction project manager. He’s working with contractors and engineers to enhance the garden’s accessibility and sightlines for both patients and visitors.

“We’ll be creating entryways and paths so that people will be able to approach the garden from several directions,” Shumate said. “And, as they walk along various paths, different aspects of the garden will open up before them. It’s a design that provides lots of visual interest.”

Shumate explained that access to the garden can come from a new path being built near the front entrance of the hospital, from entryway doors being fashioned at critical points in existing hospital buildings, and from already-existing outdoor paths, which are being repaved or extended to lead people into and through the garden. All paths, of course, will be constructed of materials (concrete, gravel, paving) that will make them handicap accessible.

Even without actually walking the paths, though, patients and others will be able to experience the garden’s beauty. The garden is sited to be visible to patients in hospital wings 2 South and 2 Southwest, and to medical and orthopedic patients who will be visiting the new ambulatory services building (ASB) now under construction.

The garden also will be visible and accessible to people in the medical library, the gift shop, the Human Resources Department and the first-floor clerical offices of ASB.

“The whole idea is to elevate patients’ well-being,” said Jeff Larson, director of the Good Samaritan Hospital Foundation. “The garden will give patients and their families a chance to get close to nature, to allow nature to help them heal.”