Cancer, heart doctors coming to Marquette

MARQUETTE – Big changes are upcoming for the Marquette medical community as a new hospital and a huge medical center are built over the next few years.

New efforts include a big jump in cancer care and other new efforts that will be offered in Marquette including new medical department heads, more doctors, research and more, according to Upper Peninsula health System-Marquette officials.

It may take 4 years to complete. The schedule depends on how soon tons of polluted soil and a building are removed from nearly 40 acres where the new hospital will be built, roughly between Snowberry Heights and the 41 bypass. However, Upper Peninsula Health Systems–Marquette is in the process of expanding their medical services.

“We are excited that we are actually bringing in more physicians,” said Ed Banos, Chief Executive Officer (CEO) of Upper Peninsula Health System–Marquette. “We’ve brought in intensive care doctors.”

Banos says the Marquette Cancer Center is working to prevent and treat cancer – and is now part of the Duke Cancer Institute.

“We have a new oncology medical director (and) he’ll be starting at the end of March,” Banos said. “He’s really going to advance our oncology program.”

Cancer research and tender care is one of their top goals using all that is available like the latest technology and experts. Banos said they are very proud of the Oncology Department.

“We are affiliated with Duke Oncology at work which is the Duke University Medical Center,” said Banos.

The heart center at U.P. Health System–Marquette is saving lives in real time, including the Cardiac Cath Lab and helicopter. The quicker a heart attack victim is treated, the better chance of recovery. The cardiac team will have more doctors.

“We have been working with our existing cardiologists and staff, and the new director is going to help us take research a little further,” Banos said. “It’s going to help us with some protocols, and development, and new services we will be able to provide.”

“We’re working on (hiring) a couple of vascular surgeons… We have three new cardiologists who have signed contracts and will be coming – one as early as February (2015), and afterwards throughout 2015 and then one in early 2016.”

Improved customer care and working with outlying hospitals are among the goals.

“And really spreading throughout the Upper Peninsula – we obviously have a clinic system as an access point,” said Jeff Perry, U.P. Health System–Marquette new Chief Operating Officer (COO). “We need those access points across the Upper Peninsula so patients can enter the care network.”

“If they have to drive a long way to care, especially when there is so much rural area in the Upper Peninsula, they need that access to care,” Perry said.

“We have the great residency program” at UPHS–Marquette, Banos said. “Being part of a teaching hospital you have a lot of family practice residents who decide to stay in the community.”

“That’s how we can keep family practice here in the U.P. and in our towns by having residents who do their service and work in Marquette,” Banos said. “When they graduate from the residency they go in and hopefully stay in the U.P. to provide care.”
Improved customer care and working with outlying hospitals are among the goals.

Banos acknowledged that not all docs stay in the U.P.

“Unfortunately with professionals, sometimes professionals leave,” said Banos. “They spend some time in Marquette, or they work a few years they move on.”

“We have a lot more (professionals) that we want to recruit” Banos said, adding many of the usual services will be staying. “We have a lot of great services that we are keeping.”