A Return on Investment
What a difference five years can make. When Susan McConnell began volunteering at UVA Cancer Center 10 years ago, patients were seen in the West Complex, otherwise known as the “old hospital.”
“Back then you needed a road map to get around as a patient,” Susan remembers. “The rooms were small and there was little light.” When plans were announced to build a new outpatient care facility—the Emily Couric Clinical Cancer Center—Susan knew this was the future of cancer care in Charlottesville.
“Because I had been a volunteer for so long, I could see the need. I could see how patient care could be dramatically improved. We could do better.”
In 2007, Susan and her brother Jamie McConnell made a $250,000 gift to the construction of the Couric Center. The funds were used to outfit a radiation suite in the bottom floor of the center, a suite that was named in their honor.
“A project like this is perfect,” Jamie says. “It brings together the needs of the community, the needs of patients, the capital needs of the University, and the interests of donors and alumni like ourselves who want to be agents of change.”
“These leadership gifts make all the difference for the work we do,” explains James Larner, MD, chair of radiation oncology. “Clinical research in the McConnell Suite has led to new ways to treat head and neck cancers, resulting in more than 30 published research manuscripts and adding to our knowledge of the disease.”
“What’s more, this space helped advance the work of Dr. Paul Read, whose research has shortened the amount of time it takes for patients to receive palliative radiation treatments by over two orders of magnitude—from 625 hours, on average, to four to six hours. This advance in the speed of delivering radiation allows our patients to spend their limited time doing what they love with their families and friends instead of receiving radiation treatments.”
And for the McConnells, the return on investment became personal.
“I receive phone calls and pictures from friends whose spouses are being treated in this suite,” Jamie says. “They didn’t know about our involvement with the Cancer Center, but they were grateful for the expert care they were receiving and appreciative of our part in it.”
