Dana-Farber patients 'steel' a look at the future – and themselves
By Saul Wisnia
A harnessed ironworker leans out over the edge of the building to paint a name.
The Yawkey Center for Cancer Care (YCCC) will open its doors in 2011 as a state-of-the-art outpatient care and clinical research facility at Dana-Farber, but on a cold and windy day this January, it was the very low-tech elements of steel and paint that had 10-year-old Katie Hayes excited about the new building.
Hayes, a patient in Dana-Farber's Jimmy Fund Clinic, was the first pediatric patient to have her name spray-painted onto one of the beams forming the shell of the Yawkey Center. As she, her parents, and other clinic families looked on from the Pan-Massachusetts Challenge Bridge, John O'Connor of the Boston Iron Workers Union Local 7 leaned off a ladder three floors up to inscribe the first names of children currently in treatment, as well as members of Dana-Farber's Adult and Pediatric Patient and Family Advisory Councils (PFACs) and their loved ones.
Young patients taped posters bearing their names on the bridge's all-glass walls for O'Connor to see, and then waved, cheered, and pointed as they saw their names immortalized in spray paint.
"I think it's cool," Hayes said, clapping her hands with excitement after seeing "KATIE" emblazoned in blue spray paint.
"I bet they saw your blue shirt and wanted to match it," added clinic Activities Coordinator Lisa Scherber, who helped the kids make and tape up their posters. Looking down at her shirt, Hayes smiled.
From the Pan-Mass Bridge, a young patient watches the action.
In a way, this is an encore performance for Dana-Farber. During the building of its Richard A. and Susan F. Smith Research Laboratories in 1996, next door to the current worksite on Brookline Avenue and Jimmy Fund Way, Local 7 construction crews performed a similar honor – painting hundreds of childrens' names along with smiley faces and messages like "HI KIDS."
One big change this time around is that adult names are also adorning the beams. Helen Fantasia, an Adult PFAC council member who has non-Hodgkin lymphoma, says adding adult names was a "wonderful" idea. "It made me feel very supported, and very proud. We're all in a battle; some have been through it and are in remission, others like me are just venturing in. But it's great to know somebody is thinking about us."
When the Smith building went up, the workers weren't just thinking about the patients. They were so moved by the children who peeked out at them from the clinic windows that they "passed the hard hat" weekly to collect cash donations for the Jimmy Fund, then hand-delivered them across the street.
"I saw the movie," said Hayes, referring to the award-winning film short, Strong as Iron, which chronicled the 1996 event and was produced as part of the Jimmy Fund/Variety Children's Charity Theatre Program four years later.
The film, which was shown in theaters up and down the East Coast for several summers, helped spur millions in gifts to Dana-Farber.
"A spontaneous, magical act"
"When I look out at the Smith building now, I still see those steel beams and all the names on them," said Scherber, who helped coordinate the name painting then, too. "It was a totally spontaneous, magical act, and the ironworkers got as much out of it as the kids. Seeing that start up again today brought it all back."
The connection between the two buildings is much more than just the paint on the steel. Bridges will connect the Yawkey Center to the Smith building, as well as to other structures on Dana-Farber's Longwood campus and to its clinical partners next door, Brigham and Women's Hospital and Children's Hospital Boston. For clinicians and scientists, the proximity will facilitate easier collaboration. For patients, it will translate to convenience and more seamless care coordination.
The steel framing of the building will continue into April or May, as the Yawkey Center grows closer to its 14-story height. The facility will feature 275,000 square feet of clinical space and a host of amenities including a healing garden, natural-light infused dining area, as well as seven underground levels for parking.
As spring and the end of the steel work nears, General Superintendent Brad Forrest of Walsh Brothers, the construction management firm heading up the YCCC project, will work with Scherber and others to get new patient requests on a regular basis and – when possible – time the painting so that people can see their names go up.
"But it's more than just about names," explains Scherber. "It's about becoming part of the soul of the building where your cancer will hopefully be cured."
Then, as Katie's mom Joelle Hayes reflected, patients who are cured will know a piece of them is still with the hospital that saved their lives.
