Health
CLEARLAKE, Calif. – Tuesday, April 3, marked the first campaign cabinet meeting of the St. Helena Hospital Clear Lake Development Office.
Gathered at the hospital campus, the cabinet met to discuss strategies for the “Building for the Future” campaign under way to raise the final $1.8 million to complete the new emergency department, expected to be finished mid-2013.
“Our Emergency Department is the front door to our hospital, the place where our patients get their first and most lasting impression of the quality of our hospital,” said David Santos, vice president of Operations. “The community support of this critical project demonstrates its commitment to making St. Helena Hospital Clear Lake a place for our patients to experience the highest level of care.”
Adventist Health, St. Helena Hospital’s parent organization, provided the first $9 million for the $12.1 million project, and challenged the hospital to fund the remainder from within the community.
Redbud Health Care District pledged $1 million in 2010. In January 2012, the Rotary Club of Clearlake pledged $25,000.
Since the beginning, the Building for the Future campaign has raised an additional $1,236,510 from community donors, including hospital employees and volunteers.
Local businesses and organizations such as Lake Pharmacy, Wells Fargo, Bikram Yoga Lake County and Coastal Mountain Electric also have been supporters.
The hospital’s emergency department – one of the smallest yet busiest in the state – currently handles about 16,000 visits per year.
With the projected increase in the county population in the future, this number may rise to as many as 35,000 visits per year.
The renovations include expanding and upgrading the original cramped 1960s-era emergency room to provide faster precision care for patients, better access, and an increase in patient care staff.
With just one year to complete the funding, the cabinet faces this tight timeline with enthusiasm for being involved in this new phase of the hospital’s future.
Leaders were identified based on individual abilities and traits such as integrity, respect among peers, the willingness to connect others, a feeling of social responsibility, and managed time to spend on a worthy cause.
“Our cabinet members will take the lead in representing the Development Office and the hospital in the Building for the Future Campaign,” said Development Officer Melissa Kinsel. “All our members bring extraordinary personal gifts and heart to this effort. I am so encouraged by their involvement.”
“I see the emergency department from the bedside and I know the incredible transformation that will occur because of the cabinet’s fundraising efforts,” said Dr. Rockwell, medical director of the Emergency Department. “We will be transformed from a small, outdated Emergency Department to an Emergency Center of excellence.”
Two key positions have been filled by well-known Lake County community members: Celia Hoberg, a longtime resident and West America Bank representative, has accepted the position of campaign cabinet chair and Rick Hamilton, owner of RAHamilton Co., and resident of Hidden Valley Lake, has agreed to be co-chair.
“As a patient I felt as though my health was the most important to everyone who was involved,” said Hoberg. “This hospital is here for the whole Lake County Community. I am proud and honored to be involved with the task of helping raise the additional funds needed to complete the remodel. A very worthy cause indeed.”
For more information or if you would like to donate please visit us at www.newERforyou.com/donate .
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Scientists at the BC Cancer Agency and University of British Columbia have identified new breast cancer genes that could change the way the disease is diagnosed and form the basis of next-generation treatments.
Researchers have reclassified the disease into 10 completely new categories based on the genetic fingerprint of a tumor. Many of these genes could offer much-needed insight into breast cancer biology, allowing doctors to predict whether a tumor will respond to a particular treatment. Whether the tumor is likely to spread to other parts of the body or if it is likely to return following treatment.
"Breast cancer is a global problem and it's exciting to see a new framework for the understanding of breast cancer emerge from our partnership with colleagues in the UK.
"This is a major step forward in building the genetic encyclopedia of breast cancer and in the process we've learned there are many more subtypes of breast cancer than we imagined,” said Dr. Sam Aparicio, study co-lead author and professor in the Department of Pathology and Laboratory Medicine UBC; BC Cancer Agency Chair of Breast Cancer Research.
“The new molecular map of breast cancer points us to new drug targets for treating breast cancer and also defines the groups of patients who would benefit most,” Aparicio added.
The study, published online in the international journal Nature, is the largest global study of breast cancer tissue ever performed and the culmination of decades of research into the disease.
In the future, this information could be used by doctors to better tailor treatment to the individual patient.
"Our results will pave the way for doctors in the future to diagnose the type of breast cancer a woman has, the types of drugs that will work, and those that won't, in a much more precise way than is currently possible,” said Professor Carlos Caldas, study co-lead author and senior group leader at Cancer Research UK's Cambridge Research Institute and the Department of Oncology. "This means that women who are diagnosed and treated fairly uniformly today will in the future receive treatment targeted to the genetic fingerprint of their tumor.”
Caldas added, “We've drilled down into the fundamental detail of the biological causes of breast cancer in a comprehensive genetic study. Our results have reclassified breast cancer into 10 types – making breast cancer an umbrella term for an even greater number of diseases.”
He said the next stage is to find how tumors classified under each sub group behave. “And we need to carry out more research in the laboratory and in patients to confirm the most effective treatment plan for each of the 10 types of breast cancer.”
The team at the BC Cancer Agency, in collaboration with Cancer Research UK's Cambridge Research Institute and Manitoba Institute of Cell Biology at University of Manitoba, analyzed the DNA and RNA of 2,000 tumor samples taken from women diagnosed with breast cancer between five and 10 years ago.
The sheer number of tumors mapped allowed researchers to spot new patterns in the data.
Study milestones include:
- Classified breast cancer into 10 subtypes grouped by common genetic features, which correlate with survival. This new classification could change the way drugs are tailored to treat women with breast cancer.
- Discovered several completely new genes that had never before been linked to breast cancer. These genes that drive the disease are all targets for new drugs that may be developed. This information will be available to scientists worldwide to boost drug discovery and development.
- Revealed the relationship between these genes and known cell signaling pathways – networks that control cell growth and division. This could pinpoint how these gene faults cause cancer, by disrupting important cell processes.
This is the second major breakthrough announced by BC Cancer Agency scientists in as many weeks.
On April 4, a team led by Dr. Sam Aparicio celebrated the decoding of the genetic makeup of the most-deadly of breast cancers, triple-negative breast cancer, which until then was defined by what it was missing, not what it was.
Similar to that announcement, the new discovery identifies genes that were previously unknown to be linked to breast cancer and makes it clear that breast cancer is an umbrella term for what really is a number of unique diseases.
While the research is unlikely to benefit women who currently have breast cancer, it substantially advances how scientists approach further research and clinical trials by providing them with a springboard to develop new treatment options and drugs targeted to specific genes.
The research was carried out in collaboration with the following institutes:
- British Columbia Cancer Agency, Vancouver
- University of British Columbia, Vancouver
- Department of Oncology, University of Cambridge
- Department of Applied Mathematics and Theoretical Physics, University of Cambridge
- Department of Genetics, The Institute for Cancer Research
- Oslo University Hospital
- Department of Histopathology, University of Nottingham
- Cambridge Breast Unit, Addenbrooke's Hospital, Cambridge University Hospital NHS Foundation Trust and NIHR Cambridge Biomedical Research Centre
- King's College London, Breakthrough Breast Cancer Research Unit
- Manitoba Institute of Cell Biology, University of Manitoba
- NIHR Comprehensive Biomedical Research Centre at Guy's and St Thomas' NHS Foundation Trust and King's College London
- Institute for Clinical Medicine, Faculty of Medicine, University of Oslo
- Cambridge Experimental Cancer Medicine Centre.
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