Prince George is setting up to be a centre for cancer treatment, but also cancer research and education.
The BC Cancer Agency Centre For the North (CCFN) is slated to open 14 months from now. The B.C. Cancer Agency proudly advertises the cutting edge features it will have: radiation capabilities, oncology supports, pharmacy, tele-health technology, close connections to labs and beds at university hospital, close proximity to the Kordyban Cancer Lodge, etc.
Most of this will be on the building's ground floor, for patient convenience. Less talked about, but even more important in the overall battle against cancer, is what will be going on in the war rooms on the upper floors.
"There is quite a bit of education space here. There is a heavy component of teaching and research being built into this facility," said Hal Collier, chief project officer for PCL, the construction company building the cancer centre.
"Research is a vital component of this," said Prince George-Valemount MLA Shirley Bond, who was health minister when the cancer centre concept came to life. "What is being constructed is a whole cancer strategy, and it is way more than a building. We have a prevention component attached to it as well. Having a university, having the medical program turning out new medical professionals, having this [treatment centre], having the lodge, it is all part of it."
Dr. Charles Jago was president of UNBC when the Northern Medical Program and the CCFN were each coaxed into existence. He is now chair of Northern Health's board of governors.
"It's not just a treatment centre," Jago acknowledged. "The oncologists will have connections to the medical school, doing education. There will be active research being done."
Some already has shape and form. Dr. Robert Olson was the first radiation oncologist hired for the CCFN and comes with projects already underway. He was appointed to a professorial position with the Northern Medical Program to both teach student doctors and do research. Jago said Olson is only one early example of what most of the centre's senior staff will be doing.
"You have the technology, you have the university, you have the Northern Medical Program, and you have the Northern Cancer Control Strategy. All these things reinforce one another," he said.
Sonya Kruger, Prince George spokeswoman for the Northern Cancer Control Strategy, said the Prince George cancer specialists would dovetail into core research mandated by the BC CAncer Agency all over the province.
"The BC Cancer Agency is a teaching organization. We will have students coming in [to the CCFN]," she said.
"We won't fully understand what the research will look like until we know who will be coming to work here," said Kruger. "Clinical trials will happen as well, but again that is something that has to evolve. We will build on the capabilities and interests of the people we attract to the facility, the partners that join these projects, and the needs of the community and the province."
Even without the recent cancer infrastructure projects, UNBC has done cancer research for years. Staff there will continue with that - like Dr. Nadine Caron's ongoing study of breast cancer outcomes among northern B.C. women - but the addition of the CCFN will only increase those efforts.
