HJBR Jan/Feb 2022

CANCER WARS 18 JAN / FEB 2022 I  HEALTHCARE JOURNAL OF BATON ROUGE   OLOL continued... multiple medical records and multiple physicians who are employed by different people in order to receive the same, great care in this town that you can receive, but in order to receive that care through other competitors. When you come to our cancer institute, you’ll receive it all under one roof, one medical record, one plan. That is the definition of a comprehensive care center. That’s what we’ll provide. We are the only comprehensive care center that’s accredited right now. We hold the cancer accreditation in town. And, there’s a reason for that. Editor: What will this mean for providers? Will they have to choose between facilities, or will they have privileges at both? O’Neal: That’s up to the provider. We have an open medical staff, so does every facility in town. We don’t deny anybody based on who they work for. It is a provider’s choice of where they choose to admit their patients, not ours. Editor: Do you anticipate OLOL and Mary Bird Perkins having a specific focus on par- ticular types of cancer, to be known for the place for that type of treatment, or do you think it’ll be open? I know you’ll serve all forms, but do you anticipate that you might go to one for one type and another for another? O’Neal: I can’t say that Mary Bird Perkins won’t have a focus; I don’t know on their plan. From an OLOL perspective, we’ll focus on all cancer types, providing the best care for every single cancer type. What we will focus on is access. Access means you get the best physician, the best research, the best advanced therapy, the best therapeutics, the best radiography, and you get it easily in your backyard, not across state lines, vir- tually if you need to. We are going to make taking care of your cancer easy and elite. That’s our focus. Editor: Do you have the team in place now? O’Neal: Yes, absolutely. We always have. The biggest thing that we have now that we didn’t have before is we have physician leadership. Cancer care should be clinician- led. As a patient, you want your care to be clinician-led. Dr. Nuss is a world-class clini- cian who has been here four years and has chosen to lead our cancer center, because he’s respected around the world for making sure that everybody gets great care. That’s what we’re known for here at the Lake — our ENT program is head and neck cancer. We’re really proud to have a physi- cian leader and to be led by Dr. Nuss, and I think that’s what’s going to set us apart. His influence, his contacts and his incredibly calm nature about moving through this is going to be refreshing. Editor: A lot of Louisiana folks with means seek out second opinions or treatment plans — they may go to M.D. Anderson — and get treatment at home in Baton Rouge. Do you think the recent changes will make thatmore or less likely to continue? O’Neal: I think a lot of folks without means seek second opinions and leave this state. I think that people stretch their families and, again, their pocketbook and their retirement and their family’s pocketbook and retire- ment to seek out second opinions, because we have not built a reputation in this state of ensuring our own population that we can care for them. That is what we plan to turn around. And yes, I believe that our cancer institute and our goals will make every person in Loui- siana say, “I want to come to Baton Rouge,” or, “I want to go to Baton Rouge for my sur- geon, for my treatment plan, but it is OK if I go back to Opelousas to receive my chemo- therapy as guided by my oncologist. That is what I envision for my own family — that you can receive the bulk of your ther- apy at home, but you know that your plan is made by the absolute best team available in the state. And that there was no reason to have to get on the interstate and drive anywhere else to get that care. That’s our goal. And we’re not going to stop until we get there, because that’s what every person deserves. Editor: Big picture, do you think most can- cers will be eradicated in our lifetime? O’Neal: No. Science is incredibly compli- cated, and I would’ve thought if I was a researcher in the early eighties that AIDS would be eradicated in my lifetime, and oh, how they were wrong, right? The human body makes cancer. It is our job to figure out how to detect it and how to treat it. But, the eradication of our own immune system, which is what’s happening with cancer, it’s an incredibly complex and beautiful play of cells, but that machinery comes with us when we start our life. Our job as physician scientists is to learn how to work with it. I don’t know that we’ll ever be able to eradicate it, because we’re human and that’s just what happens. Editor: Is there a question that you wish you would’ve been asked in this interview or something that you’d like to say at the end? O’Neal: What we didn’t talk about very much is the role that education plays in cancer care. I’m an educator, and I spend a lot of my time educating both patients, students, resi- dents and our staff. I think that is another thing this state has not done their due dili- gence in making sure we all have great edu- cation. But also, that lack of a great educa- tional foundation in our state means that we have to make sure that we offer education at every step in this journey. The Lake is very proud to be a provider of education for medical care, too, because that’s how we build leaders. That’s how you become better — not just about treating every patient with the best care, it’s about educating the next generation of care pro- viders. We’ve had that history, and we will continue to set ourselves apart by being a major educator in the healthcare sciences.