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Duke Celebrates "Topping Out" of New Cancer Center Building

On November 4, as patients, physicians and staff, community leaders and board members gathered to hear Duke University Chancellor for Health

The new Duke Cancer Center Building will provide an additional 269,000 square feet of space dedicated to cancer care, including:

	140 examination rooms
	75 infusion stations
	Radiation Oncology services
	A pharmacy
	Centralized imaging facilities

Construction of the center requires:

	1 million man hours
	50 miles of wiring
	7 miles of water piping
	over 50,000 square feet of glass

Affairs Victor Dzau, MD, launch the new Duke Cancer Institute (DCI), guests also participated in the "topping out" ceremony for the new Duke Cancer Center building. Duke broke ground on the new facility in November of 2009; it is expected to open in early 2012.

During the topping out ceremony, the final beam—which had been signed by hundreds of patients, physicians, and staff in the weeks prior to the event—was hoisted by a large crane to the top of the building amidst cheers from the crowd for the symbolic completion of the frame of the building, whose construction is several weeks ahead of schedule.

The new state-of-the-art Cancer Center building will offer the growing number of cancer patients and survivors treated at Duke comfort and convenience through consolidated cancer services, an abundance of light-filled treatment rooms, a café, a rooftop terrace and gardens, and ample quiet spaces for quiet conversation and reflection. The cost of the new facility will exceed $200 million.

"We have received many very generous gifts that will help offset the cost to construct this new facility and hope to receive many more, including a naming gift for this centerpiece of the DCI," says Karen Cochran, executive director of development for the Duke Cancer Institute. Among those is a recent $500,000 gift from Tom and Janet Kean of Norwood, NC. The Kean's gift was made in honor of the late Nicholas G. Georgiade, DDS, MD, a distinguished surgeon and chief of the Division of Plastic, Maxillofacial, and Reconstructive Surgery at Duke from 1975-1985, who treated the Keans' daughter, Terry, years ago. The fourth-floor patient waiting room in the new building will be named in honor Georgiade.

"We have had a deep loyalty for Duke Hospital for many years," says Mr. Kean. "They have done so much good for us, both for cancer and outside of cancer, that we wanted to help this great new building and honor a physician who has been so good to our family."