Friday, July 18, 2025
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How The Morris is redefining family care when it comes to cancer treatment

The standalone Jack and Sheryl Morris Cancer Center in New Brunswick not only provides world-class care, but does it in a way that extends to entire family

A.J. Patel remembers everything about Aug. 7, 2023, the day he got the news no parent was to hear: His daughter Serena was diagnosed with cancer. She was 3.

“I started crying,” he said. “I was devastated.

“When you hear the word ‘cancer,’ you automatically associate it with the worst end of it.”

Questions started pouring out of him: What was B-cell lymphoma? What would the treatment for it be like? What was the long-term prognoses? Where would it be done?

Fortunately for Patel, Serena, his wife and their older son, Dr. Scott Moerdler was sitting across from the table.

“We had a million questions, and he answered every one,” Patel said. “He didn’t just brush us off. He sat there and made sure that we understood the course of treatment and that it was curable.”

And when Patel got two family members who are doctors on a three-way call, he said Moerdler answered all of their questions, too.

The care and concern Moerdler showed not only for Serena but every member of her extended family — at their time of greatest need — was remarkable, Patel said.

“He stayed with us,” he said. “He basically held our hand.

“I told my wife, ‘Because of him, we’re going to stay here.’”

***

“Here” has a new home.

The Jack and Sheryl Cancer Center in New Brunswick — one of just 13 free-standing cancer hospitals in the country and a central part to the cancer-fighting mission of the Rutgers Cancer Institue and RWJBarnabas Health — opened its doors to patients for the first time Monday morning.

Serena, who will turn 5 in September, was one of the first patients to experience the 12-story, 520,000-square-foot facility that looks more like a five-star hotel than a place that expects to serve 1,000 patients a day.

There are 96 private inpatient rooms, 85 examination rooms, 84 infusion chairs and four linear accelerators — not to mention the nine operating rooms and 10 science laboratories for 10 principal investigators, each with a team of about 10 researchers.

State-of-the-art doesn’t begin to describe the Morris. And describing it only by its technology and world-class caregivers isn’t complete, either.

The Morris has put caring for the patient — and that person’s entire family — at the forefront of all that it does.

Morris, the chairman of the board at RWJBH University Hospital and one of the driving forces behind the creation of the facility that bears his family’s name, wouldn’t have it any other way.

“When someone in the family gets cancer, everyone is involved,” he said. “People forget that.”

That’s why the Morris comes with spacious and comfortable waiting areas with all the amenities people need — such as free food and drink and plenty of outlets.

It’s why family members are not only allowed to stay in patient rooms, but the rooms were designed to include them. It’s all part of the grand plan.

“It’s about the family,” Morris said. “It’s not just about the individual.”

***

The glorious spiral staircase that highlights the open-air center of the facility is eye-catching. As is the fact that there is so much natural light throughout.

Even the radiation oncology center, traditionally in the basement of such facilities, was built in a way that its entry point comes with floor-to-ceiling glass windows that bring in light.

Kathleen Arcidiacono, the vice president of nursing at the center, said it’s all part of the overall aura of the Morris.

“From the moment you walk in the door, you can see that the aesthetics put patients and families at ease,” she said.

That continues throughout, Arcidiacono said.

“We have a dedicated team in this all-inclusive space that is determined to deliver complex care and support them through their journey,” she said.

“If patients have to, unfortunately, receive not the best of news, we have an entire team that wraps themselves around them, basically like a blanket, and provides them that warmth, support and clinical expertise to help them.”

The clinical care should not be understated, Dr. Andrew Evans said.

Evans, the chief physician officer at the Morris, said its ability to treat patients there is unmatched.

“Cancer is hard; cancer is complex,” he said. “If we can at least disarm the patient a little bit, starting with the aesthetics of a beautiful five-star-hotel-like environment, that’s step one.

“But what’s awesome about this building is not just its beauty, it’s how we are literally free standing and consolidated.

“As of last week, and for the 50 years before, if you needed an MRI, a surgeon, an infusion for cancer, you often would see three, four, five specialists and have three, four or five imaging tests. All potentially in different buildings. Now it’s all in one.

“To be able to literally navigate cancer care, to have everything at a one-stop shop, is huge.”

***

On this day, a bouncing and charismatic Serena wasn’t concerned about the ease-of-use for her next treatment or the number of top docs ready to see her.

She had bigger issues. Serena was concerned about how difficult it was to untie and undo all the packaging connected to the toy she had picked out at the Fun House section of the center’s pediatric wing — one designed to look like a trip to the Shore.

Luckily, RWJBarnabas Health CEO Mark Manigan was there to help — searching for the endless amount of seemingly unnecessary tiny zip ties on the product, feeling a pressure most parents don’t face until Christmas morning.

He laughed at the challenge. To see Serena, who has been undergoing chemotherapy for two years, have the joy that only a toy could bring, meant the world to him.

“That brings it home,” he said.

To Manigan, it was about a mission to treat cancer in a “warm and welcoming” environment.

“We didn’t want it to feel like a hospital, and this place doesn’t feel like a hospital,” he said.

Serena’s father certainly agreed.

He said RWJBH has long been a place his daughter loves to come to. All the pokes and prodding are OK with her, Patel said.

And the fact her brother also gets attention — he, too, got a toy — meant the world to Patel and his wife, as well.

“This is tough on him, too,” he said.

The Morris aims to change that, promising a version of complete family care you won’t find anywhere, Manigan and Morris said.

After just one visit, Patel is convinced they have met the mark.

“This place is amazing,” he said. “It’s breathtaking.

“I’ve never seen anything like this. It doesn’t even seem like a hospital. It’s like an amusement park.”

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