Cancer is not just one illness. Patients afflicted with cancer are afflicted with their own unique cancer; whether or not that's breast cancer, lung cancer, colon cancer, prostate cancer or acute leukemia. That observation has lead, over the past decade, for most of the major clinical cancer centers around the country that provide high-quality, patient-directed care to become more specialized with specialized expertise.

This is really necessary because of the technical advances, the advances in the knowledge about these specific illnesses, but also the need to provide an infrastructure that is specific for the woman with breast cancer, the gentleman with prostate cancer or the younger individual who has lymphoma or acute leukemia. That expertise is necessary when we think about that not only with regards to the physicians, but the nurses, the surrounding facility infrastructure and all of the other aspects that are provided within an institution where a patient seeks out their care.

If you think about an oncologist who sees a wide range of patients, a general oncologist, they must be up to date about not only what is the best in breast cancer for the patient they're seeing now, but it may be that the next patient they see has prostate cancer. And an hour later they may be seeing a patient with lung cancer. And an hour after that, they may be seeing a patient with acute leukemia. This is, in this decade, a difficult task to be able to be an expert in all of those diseases, no matter how hard one works.

One can be cared for by an oncologist, but probably the best and the most expert care is really delivered by a cancer specialist who is primarily focused around breast cancer. Or if you have prostate cancer, is focused around prostate cancer. It is really the way in which the most premier and best centers around the country provide the highest quality and the most patient appropriate care. This kind of integrated care, where one has team members from a wide range of disciplines, but also within those disciplines have cancer-specific expertise, is what we call "interdisciplinary care."

Here at Froedtert & The Medical College of Wisconsin, we have for many years focused our care around interdisciplinary care that is also cancer disease specific or specialized cancer care. It really is taking the expertise around your type of cancer to individualize the care best for you with the latest innovations, the best support and the greatest opportunity to have a high-quality, patient-appropriate outcome.

Froedtert & The Medical College of Wisconsin is going to open up a new Clinical Cancer Center. This is a major step forward, not only for this institution and The Medical College of Wisconsin, but for the patients in the state of Wisconsin and in the surrounding regions. This is an innovation, not in that it's all new, but it’s really a facility that allows us to take all of the care parameters and models that have been in place here for many years, and to now focus it in a more patient-friendly, patient-supportive manner in brand new, lovely facility.

It allows us to bring the expertise of the radiation-oncologist, who is dedicated to breast cancer, the surgeon who is dedicated to breast cancer, the medical oncologist who is dedicated to breast cancer, a nursing service that is dedicated to breast cancer, and bring them together into one home for the patient.

As we begin to contemplate the advantages that are provided by this new Clinical Cancer Center that is at Froedtert & The Medical College of Wisconsin, there are several aspects which really provide a new venue for cancer care that has not existed in Southeast Wisconsin. Within this Clinical Cancer Center, the clinic has actually been divided around specific cancers. It's very much in line with our belief that the best care for a cancer is if it's focused around expertise and specialization.

But it's also a consistency, so that the patient begins to feel like it's their home. The people that are there are the people that were there last week. The physicians that are there are the physicians that were there last week. This is a model that's been in place at Froedtert & The Medical College of Wisconsin for a long time.

But this facility allows us to expand upon that, to extend it to a much wider range of cancers and allows us to provide this in a situation where the access is greater, the patient comforts are greater, the expertise only continues to grow as it is integrated in these multiple missions, all focused around the patient's individualized cancer, their care and their ultimate individual long-term excellent outcome.