For the past two years, Fred Hutch Cancer Center – Proton Therapy staff worked closely with members of NASA’s SCaN (Space Communications and Navigation) team to develop the program, which includes a briefing video narrated by astronaut Kjell Lindgren, MD.
It also includes a specially-designed, immersive space that looks like a NASA control center.
Seattle Children’s anesthesiologist Corrie T.M. Anderson, MD, FAAP, who works frequently at the proton therapy facility with young children needing anesthesia for treatment, came up with the idea.
He had heard from many children that the gantry — a machine that spins 360 degrees around a patient to access different treatment angles — looked like a spaceship.
