Dr. Steven Libutti has been asked the question for nearly a decade now. Every time a new building goes up, every time another milestone gets reached, somebody pulls him aside and asks: What’s next? Where do you go from here?
He answers with a question of his own.
“What could I possibly do next or look towards another institution that would be so aligned in heart and vision of what we’re doing here?” Libutti told BINJE, standing inside the brand-new Melchiorre Cancer Center on the campus of Cooperman Barnabas Medical Center.
“I couldn’t have dreamed for more.”
Libutti is the William N. Hait Director of Rutgers Cancer Institute and senior vice president of Oncology Services for RWJBarnabas Health — the head cancer guy of the organization.
But he’s the first to say, this isn’t about him.
It’s about the patients. It’s about the potential.
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The Melchiorre — a five-story, 137,000-square-foot outpatient facility that opened Monday in Livingston — is the product of a partnership between RWJBarnabas Health and Rutgers Cancer Institute, backed by $1.5 billion in investment, built around a simple idea: that New Jersey’s 9.1 million residents shouldn’t have to cross a bridge or go through a tunnel to get National Cancer Institute-designated comprehensive cancer care.
Libutti is the guy making sure that idea works.
“There are many doors to one program,” he said. “This is a major new door that we’ve opened for this region.”
The Melchiorre is the second of three big doors for RWJBH.
The Jack & Sheryl Morris Cancer Center in New Brunswick — the state’s first and only freestanding cancer hospital, one of only 13 in the nation — opened a year ago. A third facility, on the Vogel Medical Campus in Tinton Falls, opens next year. When it does, there will be access points for patients no matter where they are in the state, all connected to the same NCI-designated program, the same clinical trials, the same level of care.
It’s an integrated structure, Libutti said, that has no real parallel anywhere in the country.
“Look at what other major cancer programs are attempting to do,” he said. “None have really been able to solve the equation. I really believe we have the solution to that equation here.”
The Melchiorre brings surgical oncology, radiation oncology and medical oncology under one roof, with 52 exam rooms, 40 private infusion rooms, an MRI linear accelerator and dedicated spaces for psychosocial support. If a patient needs inpatient care, they can be seamlessly navigated to the Morris. The doors are different. The program is one.
For all the statistics and strategy, Libutti keeps coming back to the moment a patient walks in.
His vision — the thing that makes the work matter — is that every person who comes through these doors feels it immediately.
“My greatest wish is that every patient that walks through this door exhales as soon as they come through that door, knowing that they’re not alone now, that there is hope for a successful journey to a successful conclusion from that diagnosis that they received,” he said.
