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Progress, Promise, and The Winship Way

From the Executive Director

By Wally Curran

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Since the founding of Winship Cancer Institute in 1937, our footprint and impact have grown substantially. And we're not done yet.

I've donned a hard hat several times in the last few years as new buildings go up and older spaces get renovated. I enjoy rolling up my sleeves and getting involved in the planning process, but what I enjoy most is seeing Winship people use their creativity and passion to design spaces that improve the patient experience and help us deliver on our mission to lessen the burden of cancer in Georgia. In the past year, Winship opened the Emory Proton Therapy Center just two blocks from Emory University Hospital Midtown (EUHM). We also created a new patient-focused Phase I Clinical Trials Unit in the Emory University Hospital Tower to support the painstaking demands of rigorous clinical trials research. This spring, we completed work on the new multidisciplinary head and neck cancer clinic on the 10th floor of EUHM. Plans are also in the works to break ground next year on a new Winship at Midtown facility.

We value the expanded patient access and advanced technology that these new facilities provide. Our challenge going forward is to use the space and technology well and to keep our focus on meaningful patient and employee experiences. In a project we've dubbed The Winship Way, we're taking a close look at our staffing needs and our overall approaches to cancer care as best aligned with research. From breaking down silos to facilitate knowledge sharing and information flow, to fostering patient engagement and education, we are reaffirming our standards of sustaining research-based, patient-centered care.

The phrase "bench to bedside" is more meaningful than ever as we think about how we translate vital discoveries in the laboratory into new cancer therapies. We are committed to providing personalized and individualized care to our patients. We are also making a promise to care for our own multidisciplinary teams by creating work environments that encourage collaboration and integration and by offering more training and professional development. Eight decades after opening our doors, Winship continues to make amazing progress that will help cancer survivors now and for years to come.

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