Being engaged in the branding and marketing of Mercy Medical Center’s new Hall-Perrine Cancer Center has been very exciting for us. The “Expectations Met” campaign has been getting a lot of exposure and talk value. We’ve also been provided an excellent opportunity to learn more about cancer and see what “world class cancer care” really means.
Cancer, in fact, isn’t one disease. It is hundreds of diseases, and each has its own way of “expressing” itself within the tens of thousands of genes all of us have.
What that means for individual cancer patients is that a combination of treatments is usually necessary to block the activity of these “harmful” genes. Its starts with patients receiving the proper diagnosis, which involves experienced cancer physicians and state-of-the-art testing capabilities. Once diagnosed, treatment could include everything from surgery, to radiation, to several “cocktails” of chemotherapy.
Okay, that’s about as much cancer expertise as a marketing guy, who doesn’t have one minute of med school under his belt, can comfortably spout. That said, we do know enough to say that inside the Hall-Perrine Cancer Center will be incredible weapons for healing … remarkable expertise, ongoing research and the latest cancer-fighting technology. It was clear during the construction tour we were given that it will be an extraordinary medical resource for all of eastern Iowa and beyond.
This week there’s been a very obvious sign the opening of the cancer center is getting nearer … the razing of the former Oncology Associates building. In their own way, I suppose you could say the large excavators ripping apart the brick walls and steel girders are cancer fighting instruments themselves … as they clear the way for the Hall-Perrine Cancer Center to begin it’s important mission.
It’s hardly work of surgical precision but obviously, its extremely effective.