My name is James Beattie, and I'm a medical oncologist at St. Joseph Hospital West in Lake St. Louis, Missouri. About four years ago, I sat in a meeting with the hospital administration regarding moving our medical oncology practice on campus. From that simple meeting, the idea germinated to build a freestanding outpatient cancer center that would be the peer of any facility in the region.
The result of that meeting - several years and a few hundred meetings later - was a 40,000 square foot cancer center now nearing completion. This new cancer center will completely integrate medical oncology, radiation oncology including a traditional linear accelerator and a CyberKnife Radiosurgery System, surgical sub specialist from Saint Louis University and the community, a women's diagnostic imaging center, a cancer library and a supportive care space all housed in a truly unique center overlooking a marina on a private lake and connected to a network of walking trails. The synergy of sophisticated medical therapy, open space and natural scenery will create a true healing environment for our patients.
As I thought about how this project materialized over time, I recalled a speech given by Steve Jobs, the founder of Apple. He was speaking at Stanford and recalled a publication from the 1960's called The Whole Earth Catalog. This was an eclectic mix of articles and tools whose purpose, they described, was to "power the individual to conduct his own education, find his own inspiration, shape his own environment, and share his adventure with whoever is interested" - Steve Jobs called it the Google of its time.
In the final edition of The Whole Earth Catalog, the back cover signed off with the words "Stay Hungry, Stay Foolish".
While I personally wouldn't consider anyone's efforts on this project particularly courageous, the spirit of these words resonate.
Stay Hungry. In his bestselling book Good to Great, Jim Thomas asserts that the reason there are so few great companies is that there are so many good companies. The reason they say "good is the enemy of great" is twofold; it is quite easy to be satisfied with "good" and the leap from "good" to "great" can be arduous. We had a good location. Moving could (and did) cause upheaval on a variety of levels - cost and aggravation not the least among them. But we had not maximized the potential we had to integrate all the various modalities needed to optimize the treatment of cancer patients. We could (and did) do better.
Stay Foolish. There will always be plenty of people who have a litany of reasons why any ambitious project cannot possibly be done. Listen, learn and pause - but do not necessarily yield. Have faith in your own instincts even when others cast doubt. While I cannot determine with certainty to what degree our project's success was ultimately due to luck or leadership, I feel confident that a large part of the reason we succeeded was the simple fact that we never wavered in the simple conviction that this project could in fact be done. And luck favors the persistent.
I want to thank SSM Health Care for the honor of speaking at this conference on Courageous Leadership. As our cancer center nears completion, I hope to always retain the two fundamental lessons learned throughout this long project. Stay hungry. Stay foolish.
To send comments about this site, CLICK HERE. To request more information about SSMHC, or to be placed on the mailing list for our OptimiSSM newsletter, CLICK HERE or call (314) 994-7913 SSM Health Care - 477 N. Lindbergh Boulevard - St. Louis, Mo., 63141 - Phone: (314) 994-7800 - Fax: (314) 994-7900
