This $29M St. Luke’s cancer center will be ‘top of the line.’ Here’s how to learn more.
For Dr. Dan Zuckerman, oncology runs in the family.
Zuckerman, a Boise native, is the executive medical director at St. Luke’s Mountain States Tumor Institute, or MSTI. There are five MSTI centers throughout Idaho, each with a singular mission: to help treat and, ultimately, cure cancer.
Zuckerman’s father has been an oncologist with St. Luke’s for more than 40 years. The younger Zuckerman left Boise for 15 years but came back when the opportunity arose. In a strange twist of fate, he is technically his father’s boss.
Regardless, this kind of medicine was always part of the plan.
“(Oncology) is the perfect nexus of science and humanity,” Zuckerman said. “I think there were moments when (growing up) ... we’d be walking around town ... and patients would just come up and give him a hug.”
That impression never left him, he said.
Zuckerman and the the staff at Nampa’s MSTI are more than happy to share the latest bit of news involving cancer treatment: a $29 million upgrade for an entirely new cancer center at its Nampa campus.
Dr. Tim Sawyer, the head of the Nampa MSTI, will give a free presentation on Oct. 11 at St. Luke’s Nampa Medical Center. The talk, in the middle of Breast Cancer Awareness Month, will involve plans for the new cancer center and advancements in cancer treatment over the past decade.
“Because of things like immunotherapy and targeted therapy, this is really the golden age in oncology,” Zuckerman said. “People in the community are going to be riding the crest of this early wave. It’s going to be top of the line.”
Immunotherapy and targeted therapy are two of the biggest innovations in cancer treatments over the past decade and will be a focus of Sawyer’s presentation, Zuckerman said.
Immunotherapy is treatment by increasing the body’s “natural defenses”; this is done by replenishing the immune system with substances made by the body or in a laboratory, according to the American Society of Clinical Oncology.
Targeted therapy, also known as precision medicine, is treatment through drugs that stop cancerous gene mutations.
Nampa’s MSTI was built in 1991. Due to several factors, including population growth, the campus has not aged well and it is “playing a little catch-up,” Zuckerman said. Though Nampa’s center has high-quality technology, the new center will provide more space and will also feature integrated medicine, such as acupuncture and massages for patients to relieve anxiety. It also will provide a space for physical therapy. Staff will increase by 40 percent, Zuckerman said.
Perhaps most important, however, is the fact that the new institute, located next to the St. Luke’s Nampa Medical Center, will make it so patients do not have to travel to other places to be treated. Patients are sometimes forced to drive to Boise to get certain aspects of their treatments due to a lack of resources. To a cancer patient, that can be a grind.
“People in this community deserve to have this done at home ... patients want to be treated close to home,” Zuckerman said. “Now we’ll be able to close those gaps.”
To register for the free Oct. 11 presentation, contact Christen Wilmer at wisec@slhs.org or 208-505-2981.
This story was originally published October 4, 2018 at 4:54 PM.