The University Medical Center held a ceremony Saturday to dedicate a new cancer center to the late Virginia state senator Emily Couric.
After Couric died in 2001 from pancreatic cancer, her family was inspired to create a state-of-the-art cancer center, said sister and "CBS Evening News" anchor Katie Couric.
Located on Jefferson Park Avenue, the Emily Couric Cancer Center is both a clinical research facility and patient care center that will use the most advanced treatments available, Medical Center CEO Edward Howell said.
"The Couric Cancer Center brings together all of the services for patients together for the convenience of the patient," Howell said.
Apart from medical care, patients and families will have access to a rooftop garden, a meditation room, comfortable sitting rooms and a wig store.
"[There is a] trend to help people with this disease and to become a warmer, more welcoming community for people, [but it] is still a deviation from the norm to find this kind of center," Couric, a University alumna, said. "I think everything about this center is comforting. The female cancer center was designed by female architects after interviewing female patients."
President Teresa A. Sullivan said the day was a great symbol of hope for the disease.
"For all of us who know how that disease touches us ... here there is really compassionate care that was built with the patients in mind," Sullivan said.
Couric said her sister always had a sense of motivation to educate and help others. After Emily Couric's death, her widower, Dr. George Beller, "was inspired to try to help other patients just as Emily did. He wanted to help people in Charlottesville and Virginia and anyone in the region who was going through this life-shattering trauma," Katie Couric said.
The dedication ceremony consisted of several speeches from those who were close to Emily Couric and those who were involved in the construction of the new center.
"We have to remember what Emily's life was really like and how proud she would be to see something like this bearing her name," Couric said. "This is very emblematic of what Emily was about: research, knowledge, solutions, compassion, care"
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