Skagit Valley Hospital opens state-of-the-art cancer center
New hospital features traditional, alternative therapies

by Mark Vinson

Gazing at the exterior of Skagit Valley Hospital’s new Regional Cancer Care Center in Mount Vernon, one quickly realizes that this is not a typical hospital.
Beautifully landscaped gardens and modern architecture featuring abundant glasswork leave an observer with the impression the building could be home to a major corporation. And, in that sense, they would be correct.
The 20,000-square foot center, directly across from Skagit Valley Hospital, opened in early December. It aims to provide patients from across the region with comprehensive treatment utilizing the latest technology, in a setting designed to highlight aesthetic values as much as clinical ones.
“This is going to help us take cancer care to a new level for the region,” hospital CEO Gregg Davidson said. “In many communities, cancer patients have to travel to multiple locations to receive their care. Our vision was to embody as many services as possible in one location.”
A team of five physicians have their offices in the building. Surgeons and other specialists come from the hospital and clinic across the street. Five-foot thick walls embedded with lead surround the radiation therapy rooms on the building’s north end.
Perhaps the centerpiece of the center is the PET/CT Simulator, a state-of-the-art machine that allows physicians to see the body’s anatomy and metabolism.
Because cancer cells are always metabolically active, the PET/CT will pinpoint the location of those cells by creating a three-dimensional map of the inside of the body. These images are then used in treatment planning for precise radiation treatment to target the tumor and protect healthy tissue.
“Our radiation equipment is as good as anything Seattle has,” said SVH Director of Oncology Peggy Perry.
Once a tumor has been located, radiation therapy can be administered through one of two linear accelerators. The machines allow clinicians to three-dimensionally view a patient’s internal anatomy and direct radiation to the desired spot at each treatment.
“We’re doing surgery without knives,” said Dr. Mehran Zaini, a highly-regarded physicist who came to Mount Vernon from Wisconsin to operate the state-of-the-art machinery.
A typical radiation treatment often lasts less than two minutes, Zaini said, but multiple treatments may be necessary.
For patients whose condition calls for more conventional chemotherapy treatment, the south end of the building features a large suite with 15 infusion chairs that looks out onto one of two “healing gardens”. This replaces a much smaller infusion area in SVH’s current building.
“We have designed this specifically for healing, not just for treating the patients,” Perry said. “The environment has to be as big a part of it as the treatments that we give.”
Specialized treatments such as acupuncture, massage therapy, physical and nutrition therapy are also available.
SVH currently serves approximately 550 patients, including 200 from the cancer care program at Cascade Valley Hospital in Arlington, which it took over operations last summer.
“We anticipate those numbers to grow as a result of the aging of our population,” Davidson said.
The Regional Cancer Care Center will occupy the entire first floor of the three-story Mount Vernon Medical Building, at a cost of $11 million. Davidson said the hospital foundation has pledged $4 million toward those costs.
“Our current clinic is woefully undersized,” he said of the present 3,000-square foot unit inside the current hospital building. “It’s also the oldest part of the hospital.”
“We decided we didn’t want to think small. We wanted to think big. But we also wanted to create what we felt was the cancer center of the future.”
Doing such meant more than merely investing in fancy machines, meticulously kept grounds and modern offices. Davidson has recruited doctors from outside of Washington to work with Dr. David Kantorowitz, SVH’s Radiation Oncology Medical Director, Dr. Robert Raish, Medical Oncology Medical Director and Dr. Mark Johnson, Surgical Oncolgy Medical Director.
“Beyond the technology, it’s bringing in the best and the brightest here to provide services,” Davidson said.
SVH is a network affiliate of the Seattle Cancer Care Alliance, a group of medical facilities that includes the Fred Hutchinson Cancer Research Center and the University of Washington Medicine and Children’s Hospital.
Physicians can partner with colleagues at those institutions on clinical trials and research and patients have additional access to treatment options and the latest research-based therapies.
The center will hold an open house on Saturday, Jan. 20 at 10 a.m. where members of the community will have an opportunity to meet the doctors and tour the facility. Refreshments will be served.