After years of planning, a once-vacant patch of Pasco County land is blooming into Moffitt Cancer Center's Speros Campus, a 775-acre medical hub in Land O'Lakes projected to grow to 140 buildings including clinics, research space and housing over the next few decades.
Its first completed facility — the Moffitt Speros Outpatient Center, located in the heart of the Speros campus — opened in January. The 120,000-sq.-ft. building features 18 clinical exam rooms, an infusion center with 22 bays and a radiology suite that include four MRI machines, four CTs, two ultrasounds, two mammogram units and two linear accelerators.
The outpatient facility also houses Tampa Bay's first proton therapy center, to which the Richard M. Schulze Family Foundation gifted $15 million. It's powered by a machine that uses proton beams to accurately target cancer tumors while limiting exposure to healthy tissues. The proton therapy center is expected to open to patients in June.
The Speros campus as a whole — backed by $600 million in active construction and $1.1 billion in capital investment — marks Moffitt's largest development in its 40-year history.
"What I really want to have here is a party in a few years of all the patients whose lives we saved. That will really bring a lot of meaning to this campus," Moffitt President and CEO Dr. Patrick Hwu said at the outpatient center's January grand opening. "That's why we're here. That's what it's all about." — By Brittney J. Miller
Matt Zuino says a college internship at an academic medical center ignited his passion for working in health care. "I saw early on in my career as a non-clinician the impact I could have supporting those doing the work," he says.