Adventist Health Sonora | Health Living | Winter 2020

6  Healthy Living • AdventistHealthSonora.org S Shane Tipton, F.N.P., P.A.-C., didn’t aspire to a leadership role. When he was recruited to Adventist Health Sonora back in 2008, he was a full- time cancer care provider. But clinical departments can often benefit from clinical leadership, and the administration felt that Tipton could bring a lot to both roles. So in 2010, he agreed to split his time between patient care and the role of director of the hospital’s cancer center. “I knew that taking that training and assuming leadership responsibilities would give me the opportunity to better serve our center,” he recalls. “And it was actually a really good fit for me.” As director, he has overseen a decade of extraordinary progress in Adventist Health Sonora’s cancer services. So much so, in fact, that it’s no longer feasible for him to share clinical and leadership roles. So Tipton has decided to return to his first love, patient care. While a search is underway for a candidate who can fill his very big shoes at the helm of the Diana J. White Cancer Institute, Tipton reflects on his decade-long leadership role with fondness and gratitude. People to be proud of It takes Tipton about two seconds to name the thing he’s most proud of during his tenure as director of the Cancer Institute. It’s the people who work there, he says. “I get so much in terms of compliments and feedback regarding the staff here,” he says. “This is from patients who go to UC Davis, Stanford and UCSF. They come back here and say, ‘Yeah, those places are great, but they have nothing on you guys.’ “These are not people who clock in and clock out and are here to collect a paycheck. These people love their patients and would do anything, anything, to see them through their journey.” A decade of expansion The Cancer Institute has seen a lot of changes under Tipton’s tenure. For example: •  In 2018 it was renamed the Diana J. White Cancer Institute and moved into the new Adventist Health Sonora Health Pavilion. •  The Institute upgraded its radiation equipment to allow for more specialized treatment. Reflections on a decade of cancer care Leading people with purpose is its own reward We’ve also become a nationally certified cancer center. There’s only a dozen or so of those in California.” —Shane Tipton, F.N.P., P.A.-C.

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