Cancer physician expands territory

Dr. Jayanth Rao will split his time between patients in Beverly Hills and a new office in Ocala.

By JIM ROSS

© St. Petersburg Times, published April 19, 2000

BEVERLY HILLS -- Jayanth "Jay" Rao is a doctor and a medical director. Now add another title to the list: road warrior.

Rao has spent the past seven years operating the Cancer Treatment Center of the Nature Coast on County Road 491 near the Beverly Hills Bowl.

These days, he's spending a lot of time in his car driving between that office and a new one he just opened behind the Paddock Mall in Ocala.

The Ocala Community Cancer Center started receiving patients about 11 days ago. Rao also serves as medical director there.

"It's exciting, because it (Ocala) is a bigger market," Rao said. "I think competition always brings out the best in people."

Florida Regional Cancer Centers Inc. owns and operates the Ocala center. The company's investors include Rao and five doctors who teach in California.

Last year, that company bought the building that houses the Beverly Hills center, although the business still belongs to health care giant Tenet, which also owns Seven Rivers Community Hospital.

Rao said that, by June, his company expects to buy the Beverly Hills business from Tenet. Joe Foster, a spokesman at Seven Rivers, said only that Tenet still owns the business; administrators declined to discuss the matter further.

No matter what happens with the ownership situation, Rao will continue seeing and treating his patients in Beverly Hills. Rao said that, ideally, he will split time between Beverly Hills and Ocala, with associate doctors helping at both locations.

Rao is one of a few physicians in Florida, and was one of the first in the United States, to gather 3-D images of tumors for treatment planning purposes. This technique allows doctors to more precisely identify the problem area and better aim their radiation treatments while reducing the harm to surrounding organs and tissue.

The center also has broken ground in the use of external-beam radiation and a specialized procedure called brachytherapy, which involves briefly implanting radiation seeds or ribbons into the tumor so it can be internally bombarded with high doses of radiation.

Rao said the Ocala center will offer those same services. It also will feature new technology used in the treatment of brain tumors and will make additional use of the 3-D technology for treatment, not just planning.

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