The
Francis B. Ford Cancer Treatment Center
has provided care for 10 years. And because of
the center’s lifesaving treatments, many residents
of surrounding communities are also celebrating
birthdays, anniversaries and other milestones.
Among them is Janet Cantley, 43, of Andrews.
Today, Cantley is cancer-free. That wasn’t the case
10 years ago.
Like many people in their 30s living life to its
fullest, the married mother of two young children
didn’t think twice when she felt a twinge of pain in
her chest. She chalked it up to a pulled muscle from
cleaning the bathtub. It wasn’t until she developed
other more worrisome symptoms that she called
her doctor.
Within two weeks, she had a diagnosis: stage III
breast cancer. It was August 2003. Cantley still
carries her 10-year-old pocket calendar, with its
notations of every consultation, every treatment,
every test. As she methodically turns the pages,
checking and rechecking dates, she is the picture of
poise and good health. But on that steamy August
day, she was terrified—terrified of leaving her
children to get treatment elsewhere and terrified of
possibly leaving them for good.
After undergoing a round of intensive
chemotherapy, she had a lumpectomy performed by
Craig Brackett, MD, a breast surgeon with Coastal
Carolina Breast Center. Then she began radiation
and chemotherapy, but there was one bright spot.
Her treatment schedule coincided with the opening
of the newly built Ford Cancer Treatment Center. If
she could go there, she could avoid having to leave
town for the daily rounds of radiation.
That’s just what Francis B. “Jeep” Ford of
Georgetown dreamed of when he and his fellow
trustees on the board of Georgetown Memorial
Hospital began pushing for a cancer treatment
center in the 1990s. Ford, who was chairman of
the GMH board at the time, said board members
were motivated by a desire to have a comprehensive
cancer treatment program close to home.
“All of us had seen family and friends who had been
forced to go elsewhere for treatment, and we saw the
toll that it took on them and their families,” Ford says.
“We felt strongly that a cancer center was needed, and
we wanted to do this for the people of Georgetown.”
A partnership of Georgetown Hospital System
and the Medical University of South Carolina
Hollings Cancer Center, South Carolina’s only
National Cancer Institute-designated cancer
center, the cancer center provides radiation
therapy services. Also housed on the campus
are chemotherapy services, counseling, patient
navigators, financial services, clinical trials for
breast, colon and lung cancer, Coastal Carolina
Breast Center and the medical practices of
Waccamaw Oncology, members of Georgetown
Physician Services.
On the medical staff are radiologist Eric
Aguero, MD, physicist Ingrid Marshall, MS, PhD,
DABR—both of whom are employed by and hold
professorships at MUSC—Lee Milling, MD, medical
director of Waccamaw Oncology, and Dr. Brackett.
Debra Magnanelli, director of oncology services
for GHS, says housing surgical, medical and
radiation oncology in one building makes things
easier for patients.
“There is no facility like it in Georgetown and
Horry counties,” she says. “We are able to deliver
comprehensive care, and our association with
MUSC gives patients confidence in the level of
cancer care that we give.”
At left:
Janet Cantley
(center) with her
daughter, Miranda,
and her son, Eric
Below:
Francis B. “Jeep”
Ford of Georgetown
and his wife,
Mary Louise
Francis B. Ford
Cancer Center
observes 10 years of providing care
6
GEORGETOWN HOSPITAL SYSTEM
