Loma Linda Women’s Cancer Center : one of its own

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Herbert Atienza, spokesman from Loma Linda University Medical Center, writes about the new women’s cancer center, which will be dedicated on March 20, 2013 :

The new Women’s Cancer and Surgical Oncology Center provides personalized patient care in a setting designed to encourage coordination and communication among all participants in a patient’s treatment – including physicians, nurses, therapists, surgeons, counselors, and the patients and their families themselves.

As Director, Mark Reeves, M.D., explains, “The center brings together – both physically and figuratively – gynecology and surgical oncologists with medical and surgical oncologists in a collaborative way that ensures comprehensive, seamless care for the patient. Each patient receives an individualized treatment plan that is developed and reviewed through the collective input of medical, surgical and radiation oncologists, pathologists, radiologists, and an entire team of specialists. Each plan is based on a patient’s diagnosis, values and life circumstances.”

Helping implement this treatment plan is a team of specially trained nurse navigators who help guide the patient through the continuum of care and provide patients the support and education they need to prepare for treatment and ongoing monitoring. The center also encourages the involvement of families throughout the course of treatment, including during clinical as well as educational visits.

“We also place high value in the non-medical dimensions of care,” said Dr. Reeves. “As a result, our center focuses on treating the whole person through support groups, exercise programs, access/referral to social work, dieticians, psychological services, spiritual support and other long-term needs of each patient.”

Adjacent to the medical and surgical centers is Loma Linda University Cancer Center’s Proton Treatment and Research Center, the first hospital-based proton therapy center in the world. Established in 1990, today the center uses proven-effective proton beam technology for many types of cancers, and has treated more patients than any other proton treatment center in the world.

 

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