Board of Trustees Approves Cancer Institute's design

Daily Egyptian

The SIU School of Medicine is one step closer to having its integrative cancer research after the Board of Trustees approved the building's design Thursday. The $20.5 million construction will begin fall 2005 and should occupy patients as soon as 2007, said Dr. Kevin Dorsey, dean of the School of Medicine in Springfield.

The facility will have three floors, covering 60,000 square feet, with 28 patient exam rooms, chemotherapy rooms, faculty and staff offices and a resource library, Dorsey said. The Cancer Institute will be located at the corner of Rutledge and Carpenter Street in Springfield, and will be the first building people see when they enter the School of Medicine campus, he said. The board approved initial plans in 2000 and the Legislature appropriated money for the building in 2002.

The institute, which is state of the art, is not an original idea, Dorsey said. Washington University and Northwestern University both have cancer institutes. Dorsey said that nowadays when people are diagnosed with cancer, they travel from office to office seeing surgeons, radiation technicians and dietitians, which can be exhausting to the already-weakened patients. The institute will house all the medical staff one needs for treatment, he said. The idea behind this is called "multi-disciplinary clinics," which makes the experience more comfortable and convenient for the patient.

"I wanted the people who enter there and who work there to have a sense of hope, a feeling of strength and support," Dorsey said. This is also the scheme around the design of the building, said Mike Czyrka, an architect who is helping design the building. Czyrka said his firm, BSA LifeStructures, which is based out of Chicago, also used outside influences to create the design of the buildings. "We worked with doctors, engineers, nurses and patients to find out different people's input," Czyrka said.

The front of the institute is designed to be warm and inviting Czyrka said. They designed the building with natural lighting and soft colors with hopes to create a more comfortable atmosphere for the patients. Czyrka said each room has a large window because studies have shown that nature and natural light aid in the healing process. "We want to make the patients feel as comfortable as possible," Czyrka said. The building houses a central spine, which are windows through the center of the institute, that will naturally light up the building.