Engineering better health and medical experiences at GBMC

If you’ve had a loved one battling cancer in a hospital for months at a time, you will better understand this emotional chat with Russ Sadler of GBMC HealthCare, who engineers and provides strategies with patients and caregivers in mind to find comfort and peace for families while they try to get better and heal in mind and body on the Towson campus.

Nestor Aparicio discusses the Maryland Crab Cake Tour and GBMC’s campus growth with Russ Sadler, GBMC’s Senior Director of Facility Planning, Design, and Energy Management. GBMC has expanded with a 60-bed building and a new cancer center, emphasizing patient experience and accessibility. Russ highlights the importance of designing spaces that improve patient morale, such as views, private rooms, and easy access. He shares personal stories, including his mother’s cancer treatment, to illustrate the emotional impact of hospital design. GBMC’s focus on community roots and specialized programs like pediatrics and sexual assault services is also discussed.

• [ ] @Nestor Aparicio – Bring Maryland crab cakes when visiting GBMC for the guided tour (as a gift/visit accompaniment).
• [ ] @Nestor Aparicio – Collect and submit specific feedback about what you (and your guests) dislike or want changed in existing GBMC spaces to help improve designs (identify issues and examples).
• [ ] @Nestor Aparicio – Try to arrange and bring your wife to a GBMC tour so she can see the facilities and share her perspective (coordinate timing with Russ).
• [ ] Provide a guided tour of the GBMC campus and new cancer center to Nestor Aparicio (coordinate date/time and meet on-site).
• [ ] Share feedback and any visitor input (including Nestor’s) with internal team members Christina, Greg, and the broader GBMC project team.

Maryland Crab Cake Tour and Summer Plans

• Nestor Aparicio introduces the Maryland Crab Cake Tour, mentioning new locations in June and returning to usual spots in July.
• Nestor shares his experience with GBMC, including advice from doctors about diet and the importance of HVAC services from Farnham and Derma.
• Nestor humorously mentions his role as a GBMC spokesperson and his personal experiences with doctors at GBMC.
• Nestor describes the ongoing construction at GBMC, comparing it to his wife’s experiences with hospitals in Boston.

Introduction to Russ Sadler and GBMC’s Growth

• Nestor introduces Russ Sadler, the senior director of facility planning, design, and energy management at GBMC Healthcare.
• Russ shares his background, including his love for construction and his transition to healthcare design 21 years ago.
• Nestor and Russ discuss the importance of updating hospitals to meet modern needs and the impact of technology on healthcare design.
• Russ emphasizes the rewarding nature of healthcare design and the need for continuous upgrades to support new medical technologies.

Patient Experience and Hospital Design

• Nestor and Russ discuss the significance of patient experience in hospital design, with Russ highlighting the importance of creating a welcoming and comfortable environment.
• Russ explains the design philosophy behind GBMC’s new cancer center, focusing on patient morale and clinical care.
• Nestor shares personal experiences of his wife’s treatment at Hopkins, emphasizing the importance of familiarity and comfort in hospital settings.
• Russ describes the challenges of managing a growing campus while maintaining a community-focused approach to healthcare.

Designing for Patient Comfort and Accessibility

• Russ details the design features of GBMC’s new cancer center, including views, accessibility, and private spaces for patients.
• Nestor and Russ discuss the emotional impact of hospital design on patients and their families, with Russ sharing personal stories of his mother’s illness.
• Russ explains the importance of creating a space that feels like home, with bright, open areas and easy access to essential services.
• Nestor and Russ talk about the role of patient feedback in improving hospital design and the importance of continuous improvement.

Specialty Programs and Community Focus

• Russ highlights GBMC’s focus on specialty programs, such as pediatrics and the sexual assault program, which are often cut by other hospitals.
• Nestor and Russ discuss the importance of these programs in providing comprehensive care to the community.
• Russ shares his pride in GBMC’s commitment to community roots and the expansion of services to meet the needs of the population.
• Nestor and Russ talk about the emotional and practical aspects of designing spaces for vulnerable patient populations, such as children and victims of sexual assault.

Building Relationships and Teamwork

• Russ emphasizes the importance of teamwork and collaboration in healthcare design, with GBMC’s team involving nurses, clinicians, and project managers.
• Nestor and Russ discuss the challenges of managing construction projects while minimizing disruption to patient care.
• Russ shares his approach to building relationships with contractors and ensuring that every detail is considered to create a positive patient experience.
• Nestor and Russ talk about the impact of hospital design on patient outcomes and the importance of a supportive and caring environment.

Personal Stories and Emotional Impact

• Nestor shares personal stories of his wife’s treatment and the importance of a supportive hospital environment.
• Russ discusses the emotional challenges of designing spaces for patients with serious illnesses and the impact of hospital design on their healing process.
• Nestor and Russ talk about the importance of creating a space that feels like home, with bright, open areas and easy access to essential services.
• Russ shares his personal motivation for designing spaces that provide comfort and support to patients and their families.

Future Plans and Continuous Improvement

• Russ outlines GBMC’s future plans for expanding services and improving patient care through innovative design and technology.
• Nestor and Russ discuss the importance of continuous improvement and the role of patient feedback in shaping future designs.
• Russ shares his vision for GBMC as a community hospital that provides comprehensive care to patients of all ages and needs.
• Nestor and Russ talk about the impact of hospital design on patient outcomes and the importance of a supportive and caring environment.

Final Thoughts and Appreciation

• Nestor expresses his appreciation for GBMC’s commitment to patient care and the positive impact of their designs on the community.
• Russ shares his pride in the work done at GBMC and the importance of creating a positive patient experience.
• Nestor and Russ discuss the challenges and rewards of working in healthcare design and the importance of a supportive team.
• Nestor concludes the segment by thanking Russ and GBMC for their partnership and the positive impact they have on the community.

SUMMARY KEYWORDS

GBMC, patient experience, hospital design, cancer center, facility planning, patient care, community hospital, healthcare technology, patient morale, construction, healthcare infrastructure, patient comfort, medical care, hospital growth, patient feedback.

SPEAKERS

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Russ Sadler, Nestor Aparicio,

Nestor Aparicio  00:01

Welcome home. We are W N S T A M 1570 Towson, Baltimore. We are Baltimore positive, positively getting the Maryland Crab Cake Tour out on the road. I’d love to tell you where and when, but I don’t know yet, because it was a holiday and I couldn’t get in touch with a lot of people. We’re gonna be doing new places, all new places in June, we’ll be back at Coco’s and Costas and State Fair, and all of the usual suspects that we have, and we’ll be doing that in July. It’s all brought to you by the Maryland Lottery. I have the Maryland Treasures. This is Ocean City, Maryland, that’s where I’m looking to go for Mako in August, so we’ll be down at the beach little later on as we get ready. Also, our friends at GBMC getting us ready for summer around here. They took my blood in the spring and told me that I shouldn’t be eating so many French fries in the summer, so I’m trying to behave here as best I can. And also, our friends at Farnham and Derma, that when it does get a little warm outside, make sure you’re using them for your HVAC. You don’t want your AC to go up, so call them now: 410 36777 and you can find them ahead of time. They might be at the Oriole game right now, because things are heating up there. So, I do a lot of fun segments around here, and sometimes I get pitched segments by clients or not. I always, always say yes, because I’m interested in people that like being on the show and have a story to tell. This is a little more interesting to me, because I’m not just a GBMC spokesperson, and like all of that, I’m actually like, like, my doctors are over there, and I’ve been over there when I’ve had doctors for all sorts of weird things with my back, and I had a skin thing years ago with Dr. Anne, but every time I go over there, my wife always says, like, when she goes to Boston, it’s always construction, I felt that way over GBMC, and I’m thinking, well, how do you make hospitals better? You have to like move things around, and the hospital’s been there 100 years. My, my brother was born there in the 70s, and I assure you, it was a different hospital then. Russ Sadler is not just a, an old school nasty Nestor WNST lister, he is the senior director of facility planning, design, and energy management at GBMC Healthcare, that you get a badge for that, and they let you run around, and all that, but more than that, every time I come around there, I see things that happen, and apparently you’re the guy that, like, plans to make sure that when I go in for colonoscopy, I go in for back appointment, I go in for, I go in for a walk a mile in their shoes at the South Chapman, that like people can get in and out and find where they need to go, and it’s nice and new and awesome when they get there, and somebody has to plan all of this, and it turns out it’s a Joe Montana fan, Russ,

Russ Sadler  02:36

that is a die-hard Niner fan, Baltimore guy, as you said, listen to you in the 90s, you know, grew up in a construction family, this, and you own a construction site. Went to school for architecture, you know, thought I was going to plan Cities of Tomorrow. 20 years ago, took a job in healthcare, thought I’d do it for a year or two, and 21 years later, I’m still designing healthcare.

Nestor Aparicio  02:55

I could talk to you all day about cities for tomorrow. I just got back from Medellin, you know, I mean, I travel a little bit, and I see the Nashville’s and the Vegas is getting bigger. I think anytime these things happen, especially in a hospital place, where you have doctors and nurses that come there every day, and they’re saving lives. I mean, my God, there’s no more important place in the world, right? We talk about airports maybe being important, get people in and out, and I think hotels are important because I stay there, and but when people come to a hospital, and I know this, about, you know, my wife spent 155 nights fighting for her life at Hopkins with her two leukemia, and just in and out, and there’s always something being built at a hospital. I mean, I’ve spent far too much time at hospitals, which is why I try to avoid them, and whenever I’m there, I, there is this vision that we’re you’re always growing and and trying to take the oldest things and make it new, because it’s just so important, and I think when that happens, you see construction go up, walls go up, things happen, but behind the scenes, and I know there’s a lot of money rolling around in lots of different ways, but it has to stay modern, it has to stay updated always, and I think that that’s probably why you found the life there, because cities need to be updated, so you’ve made a life in updating hospitals, from what I can tell in your LinkedIn, Russ.

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Russ Sadler  04:12

I have, you know, healthcare is probably the most rewarding industry you can get in. I’m not clinical at all, and you know, I always tell people, somebody goes down, I’m calling a code because I’m not the guy that’s going to, you know, do the CPR, but I’m the guy that can build the space that’ll get you better, you know. The beauty of healthcare is, as technology changes at such a rapid pace, our space has to change, you know. New technology for cancer technology and treatment and medical care and operating rooms, all that requires upgrades to the physical infrastructure. You know, we, you know, I grew up in that generation of technology’s gonna make everything smaller, and healthcare technology is making everything bigger. We need bigger spaces, more room for the equipment, for C-arms, or radiology, and every time we want to improve our patient care, that involves some type of construction, some type of physical infrastructure upgrade, and that’s where my world comes in. And you know, I got a great job. The world, because I joke, I get paid to think of cool stuff, you know. People come to me and they say, we need to build new ORs, we want to build a new cancer center, we want to build an addition for patient care, and my job is, and my team’s job is to figure out, how are we going to do this? How do we do it? How much does it cost, and how can we not have any negative patient impact, and really provide something for the community, and I think that’s why I love my job so much. It’s, it’s the most rewarding thing there is to do.

Nestor Aparicio  05:25

You, Baltimore guy, imagine this ers thing going on. Colts left when I was a little kid. Oh, okay. So, you’re a Baltimore guy,

Russ Sadler  05:31

Baltimore guy. Colts left when I was a kid. You know, my brother became a Commanders fan. My dad kind of gave up on football. I saw Ronnie Lott crush somebody as a kid and instantly fell in love with the ers,

Nestor Aparicio  05:44

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and then they got good,

Russ Sadler  05:46

then they got good, and yeah, I got the joy of the 80s, and even those early 90s, yeah, loved the 90s,

Nestor Aparicio  05:51

and adopt the Ravens, no, I mean, no,

Russ Sadler  05:53

I’m a

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Nestor Aparicio  05:54

lawyer, too much Steve Young going on in 95 for you, probably when that happened, right,

Russ Sadler  05:58

I am, I’m a loyalist, and I just can’t give up, you know, I don’t like change, and I just love the Niners, and you know, still hate the Cowboys. So, sorry, Cowboys fans, but

Nestor Aparicio  06:07

you had a really, really tough afternoon, february 1, 2013 didn’t you? That was bad.

Russ Sadler  06:11

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My wife is a die-hard Ravens fan, so it makes for some awkward times at home, but no, I think the Ravens are a phenomenal team, great franchise. I just can’t give up on my Niners. It’s just, it’s in my DNA. I just been there my most, my entire life. So

Nestor Aparicio  06:28

it was so much fun in the 90s when the team came to meet people like you, because I was an Oiler fan, and I had, I mean, I had the whole rainbow. My kid, yeah, my kid had a ers jacket, my kid was a ers fan, like Joe Montana, and all that, and there was a lot of that, because their bills were big, then you know, so I, there were Browns backers clubs here, so you know all that goes on. I want to talk about hospitals with you in an old school way, because my son was born, and my parents both died at at what I would call City Hospital, right, and I remember it’s now the Bayview campus when I go over there, and I worked there for five minutes in 1984 for a doctor. Well, you know, and I like, I’ve seen that physically. I think GBMC is a little different, and I think Hopkins would be this too, because you go to Hopkins, that original brick building still sits there, and all of this glass menagerie shows up around it. GBMC is kind of sequestered off in this tree-lined place. And when I was a little boy, I always had to drive past GBMC, because my primary doctor was Dr. Wells. He was right on Falls Road. We would always come Roxton Tower down the hill, so I.. but it was always like you had to make a left-hand turn to see it. I think if people haven’t been there, and again, my brother was born there, and I’ve been fortunate, you know, I’ve been on the GBMC campus maybe a lot over the last 15 or 20 years, but maybe there were 20 years I wasn’t there, but just in these last 15 years of winding up in there, not as often as they’d like to have me there, but you know, when I do come, and I do like to come for things like the charity event walkama, I see that it is so much. I remember it maybe as a kid it being a lot of green, like a big park with a little hospital and a little wing and a little this and that, and now it’s, it is literally a campus at this point, and I don’t know where you came in on it. How much of the newer stuff is because of you, but I’m not gonna lie to you, I did get lost on the road in there the morning of my colonoscopy at 630 and the morning of your colonoscopy, don’t want to get lost on the way to the hospital, you know? I literally did. It’s, it’s good that I have you here because the signs are good in all of that, but there’s a lot going on over there, a lot going on. Yeah,

Russ Sadler  08:45

I’ve been here about 11 years now, and since I’ve been here, we’ve added the two newest buildings, which is our Freeman building, which is our 60 bed building expansion, and our new cancer center. It’s a large campus. I tell people we are, we are a healthcare system that still maintains its community roots, so GBMC is great, because we are there from those exciting moments of, you know, birth, your first days to the precious moments of your last days, you know, our house, our system serves that, you know, that population, you know, we’re not just a cancer hospital, we’re not just, you know, orthopedic hospital, we’re a community hospital that serves all purposes, you know, like I said, from from those amazing first days when your child’s born to those last precious days with your mom or dad, and I think that’s what we focus on, and some, you know, we’re expanding our services that the community needs. Our new cancer center is one of the largest in the state, it consolidates all of our cancer services, you know, my mom unfortunately passed away from cancer, and that building that design was significant to me, and really had a lot of emotional value when we were doing that design, because prior to that building, our cancer services spread out throughout our campus. We had three different buildings serving cancer programs. Now it’s all it’s a one-stop shop, you park under the building, you immediately go up, you know, when I, when we designed that building, my was patient. Experience, I remember, like, what my mom went through, and the views of her center was an amazing, it was a great medical center, but we looked at a parking lot all day, we counted cars to pass time, it just, your patient morale has such an impact on your healing, so a lot of these newer designs were really emphasizing on the clinical care, the family care, and the patient morale, is it a space where you don’t feel like you’re in a sterile environment. So, our campus is definitely growing, because things are getting bigger. We want to take that patient experience into account, especially, you know, what that patient feels when they’re in the space. Nobody wakes up and says, “I’m so happy to go to a hospital today. Nobody sits in a room and says, “I’m so.. this is just where I want to be at. I’d much rather be here than we’re in a boardwalk, eating thrashers, nobody, nobody says that. So, if my, if our designs can just give them a little bit of, you know, happiness, of you know, maybe a better view, maybe a bigger space, just more esthetically pleasing. So that’s why our campus is growing, because we’re that patient experience is such a big driver in design nowadays, compared to 40 years ago, when it was, you know, almost like a restaurant style philosophy, just get, you know, flip the tables, get them in, get them out, and you know, push the customer out the door. Nowadays, patient experience is such a huge factor in everything we design, and, and unfortunately, people still get lost because we are growing, but we, you know, it’s, we’re working on those with signage, and as we get bigger, you know, we have those long-term people that have been here for 40 years, and that muscle memory – they sometimes they drive by a new building and don’t realize it’s there, and they’re like, “Well, what side campus am I on now?

Nestor Aparicio  11:28

I’ll blame it on my wife; she was driving that day, but you know you’re gonna get me upset, make me cry on this thing, because you start talking about patient experience, and you talk about what my wife went through in another hospital, sort of famously, and there was a point toward the end of her first battle after her transplant that she took sick, and when she went back to the hospital, they put her on a different floor, and she didn’t know the nurses, she didn’t know the people, and she got wildly depressed, wildly depressed, and she was already fighting for her life. And then I’m dealing with that, and it was about darkness in the room. There was no, like, literally put her in a room that she couldn’t see anything, and it freaked her out, like. And, and I was watching it deteriorate, and I’m the caregiver at that point, and probably wasn’t so nice to charge nurse that day. I didn’t make friends down there that day, but I can just say, like, if you gave me a scorecard and I was checking out, and by the way, we called it the hotel, it’s what we.. she lived there for the better part of two years, in and out, outpatient, the whole deal, every part of it, from where I parked to where I dropped her off, to the elevators, to the beautiful man that greeted her at the front door every day, like every part of it matters a lot. It matters a lot if you’re there one night, you know, I remember my wife was stuck there. I had friends saying, “My God, I did one night in the hospital. It was the worst night of my life. Like, you just want to get out. There’s nobody happy about being there. There’s nobody happy visiting people there. But there is a point where it used to be like a marine barrack, you know, 4050, years ago. It’s like, you know, we don’t want you to be comfortable here, you know, it’s a hospital, it’s not, it’s supposed to be sterile, it’s supposed to be all of that. You know, there’s been a real rethinking of that during your era, and maybe you’re better suited to do this, Russ Sadler, than build cities. Huh?

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Russ Sadler  13:32

Yeah, I think you know, you know, I’m a big believer, and you know, my mom used to call me, everybody has a calling, and you figure it out at some point in life, and you know, when I got into healthcare, and then I just, it just, it just resonated with me, and, and when my mom got sick, it just really resonated with me of how impactful patient experiences, and, like I said, she was at a facility, amazing clinical care, but just horrible environment, and, and she was depressed every day, and so when we got the opportunity to build this cancer center, you know, selfishly, my entire drive for the design was like, what would make my mom happy, and what would make your mom happy, and somebody else’s, your wife, or your family member. And

Nestor Aparicio  14:09

so, give me the 10 things: decent view, good lighting. So, you need, like, all of that, right?

Russ Sadler  14:14

So, you need, you need a view that doesn’t depress you. You need something that’s going to give you something to look at to pass the time. You need spaces where you can either talk to people or a private space, you know. So we designed it with, if you want to be left alone all day, we have private rooms in our cancer center. If you want to talk to people, we have a common Bay Area where you can talk to your neighbor, and you know, everybody, everybody heals differently. Some people like that community, some people like the privacy, some people switch it back and forth. Accessibility was the key, like I did not want people walking through three different buildings asking for directions. You’re already feeling horrible, you’re already depressed, you got this major illness going on. Nobody wants to stop and ask directions. I mean, nobody wants to explain to somebody where they’re going. So we built it on top of our garage. You park, you immediately go in, you’re instantly in the building, greeters right there when you get the elevator. Multiple elevators, bright open area. Yeah, if you ever,

Nestor Aparicio  15:04

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you can also can control everything from the minute they park to the minute they leave, as to what the experience is going to be, that you don’t have to walk through the dental department and this and that, and right, exactly right,

Russ Sadler  15:15

correct, yeah. And the building is the building’s designed for it’s an oncology building, so people, everybody in that building can either relate to what you’re going through, or and can appreciate what you’re going through from a clinical perspective, and they know you know nobody’s in the building because you’re not going to be next to somebody who you know always say you gotta think and let the person in the room and that person next to you might be having the worst day of their life, so they might not want somebody talking about the Ravens game the weekend before, or talking about, you know, their vacation, because they’re having the worst day of their life right now. You got to read the room. So we designed this building that essentially everybody there can relate to each other. There’s a, there’s a camaraderie there. It’s a beautiful building. And if you ever around, I would love to give you a tour. I’m really proud of the building. I’m proud of everything we build here.

Nestor Aparicio  16:00

I’m in,

Russ Sadler  16:01

yeah,

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Nestor Aparicio  16:01

I’m in, yeah, I’ll bring the crab cakes,

Russ Sadler  16:04

there we go, yeah, so we really try to emphasize that patient experience, and you know, over the past couple years, it’s really picked up, and like I said, it’s probably one of the best parts of my job is knowing, you know, when you’re done, to see those patients go in there, and then they tell you how much they love the space, or how much it helped them get to a bad day, and and we have a holistic area where you can do, you know, massage and holistic healing, besides our clinical healing, and even our Friedman building, which is your inpatient building. Same philosophy, we designed it in a way where you feel like you’re in a really nice hotel room, that the finish is the way it’s laid out, the way the bathrooms are laid out, the way you have a space for your family with pull out sofas, or you have a pop out desk for the grandkids who have to do their homework, and they’re visiting somebody.

Nestor Aparicio  16:46

I can honestly say none of this was our experience, you know. We didn’t have.. she’s alive, we’re real pleased, right? No doubt about it. But it.. it wasn’t quite like that 12 years ago when we were in it, and it’d be interesting, you know, my wife doesn’t like touching this too much, right? Like, I’ve talked about this this week, especially this week. I want to give a shout out to the LLS people who are doing their Visionary of the Year this week. I’ve had a lot of Casper Wells, met some people on who are contestants and raising money for a great cause for cancer patients, but, and I can honestly say, you know, if I brought my wife over, if she could handle it and was in the right frame of mind to talk to you about it, she could tell you everything she loved about it, and everything that she’d say, “Well, I wouldn’t have liked that, or, “You know, hey, hey, I would have loved to have had that, this would have been nice, or that would have been nice. And I just say this because I didn’t really want to get upset during this, but I was thinking it out loud when you were talking about your mom, when my wife had cancer, she was bald, right? And she would walk around the cancer center, and everybody would talk to her, and look at her, and everybody was sort of in the same boat. We would go down, we would go to the center where they made hair replacement, and had it was right next to the radiology, so you had this sort of stand in line in the same place when you’re having radiology, and we would see people that knew us, we knew them. Some days my wife’s vomiting in a bucket. Some days she sat up and looked beautiful and was coming to life, but it was like we saw everybody in different states of where she had been through the battle in all of this, but then she would walk bald through the inner harbor, and no one would speak to her. People are deathly afraid of what to say or not to say to a cancer patient, right? Like, they just avoid them, and I would see men that would hang their head, they couldn’t even look at her, you know. So, she’s dealing with that, and then on the campus, it’s got to be peaceful.

Russ Sadler  18:42

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Yeah, it’s, it’s, it’s got to be, yeah. We really want a place for people, just the patients in this building, to be like, you know, the feel almost at home, like, you know, I’m just one of the many people in this building going through this of different phases. And, yeah, I have, thankfully, I have an amazing team of nurses and clinicians and project managers and engineers, and, and we all kind of dive in on this philosophy of, like, the patient experience is what matters. It’s patience over profits, it’s, you know, it’s feelings over financials, it’s, you know, if you feel in the right space, if your head’s in the right space, yeah, you’re going to heal in the right space. And it’s such a huge part of my job, you know, I love engineering, I love design, I love construction, but it’s that patient experience that really drives my designs, of knowing that you know we are still here after 60 plus years, we’re a community hospital that we’re here for every means of illness you might have, and we’re really now focusing on, you know, expanding our campus to better the patient experience, you know, besides that, where you know, programs that other big systems are getting rid of, we’re focusing on other systems, are not focusing on pediatrics anymore. Our sexual assault program, other health systems have got, have gotten rid of those programs. We’re increasing those programs, we’re focusing on pediatrics. We have an amazing sexual assault program here that is just phenomenal, that we. I think I don’t know exactly. I think almost every hospital in the state has gotten rid of our major safe program, you know. So we’re a health system that with community roots, we really are here for the patients, and and that’s what we focus on.

Nestor Aparicio  20:13

Russ Sadler’s here. He is the senior director of facility planning, design, and energy man management, which is a complicated way of saying he makes things work over GBMC, where they have been building things, and we want to talk about this, and you did get me, I did like 40 segments without getting crazy during my charity week, and you just blown me up. Everybody that comes there is even when I was having my colonoscopy, or just having my blood drawn, it is like a hospital. Nobody’s particularly comfortable showing up there, even if they’re celebrating having won whatever their battle is. I would think that every part of this, we talk about cancer, it means something to you and me, but if it’s anything, any other part of this, I’ve done a lot with the Safe program and talked a lot about that. I would think that that area, the minute that someone who’s been assaulted shows up, the last thing it wants to look like is a prison or a hospital, right? Like, literally,

Russ Sadler  21:09

yeah. So that design is the only design where we had everybody in a room, including myself, just crying. We sat down, designed that with a staff, it was they were in this really small area, and when we got here, we expanded it, and we went through the initial design, and you go in there with your parameters of, okay, you need the code stuff, I need this much square footage for an exam room, but then the staff hit you with the things that the emotional stuff, they’re like, well, we need a place to charge our Power Wheels car, and the initial, why, I’m confused, and they’re like, because when a kid comes in, they’re upset, we let them drive a Power Wheels car, and instantly tears, like it was like it hits you, like, “Oh my god, like this is the patient we’re trying to serve, like we’re helping a child who’s been through the most horrific thing in the world, and

Nestor Aparicio  21:50

you’re thinking about the parking and how much steel it’s getting, like that’s the way your engineering mind works, right? But when you’re in the hospital, totally different gig, right?

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Russ Sadler  21:57

So you’re thinking about, like, so we’re like, great, let’s let’s design the space right then. Let’s, let’s put in a charging spot for power wheels cars. Let’s, let’s make the space, you know, have brighter colors. Let’s make it, you know, more not so scary. Let’s, let’s, and so you get the, you get the privilege of building these spaces where it really has such an emotional, you know, cling to you. And, and one of my.. it was a smaller project. One of my most proudest projects is when we built our NICU. It’s, you know, we built a NICU, and you’re dealing with a patient population that can’t tell you what’s wrong with them, that you know, your mom and dad are completely stressed. First days of life, the child.. the baby’s in a NICU. Nobody has..

Nestor Aparicio  22:37

that’s what I know of GBMC is delivering babies, and it was the place, it was the place for right, I mean, like that was 4050 years ago,

Russ Sadler  22:46

right? Yeah, still is. We still deliver more than almost every hospital in the state, over 3000

Nestor Aparicio  22:51

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We’re having a problem pregnancy, and

Russ Sadler  22:53

you go here,

Nestor Aparicio  22:53

we would say preemies, of which my brother was one, that GBMC. Well, we’re gonna send you there, that they have the best care, they have the best facilities, and that was 40 years ago. You got to keep that up, right?

Russ Sadler  23:06

So, yeah, we just built a new NICU 2018 you know, still state of the art, and so there’s projects like that. I mean, I can build X-ray rooms all day, I can build, you know, cardiac rooms all day, I can build orthopedic rooms, but it’s the projects where you hit that patient population, where I say it’s a, you know, they’re the defenseless population. Babies can’t tell you what’s wrong, they, you know, our safe program, you know, that population, it’s they go through this horrific thing, and it’s those projects that matter the most, because it’s like, you’re, you know, I’m not a clinician, I can’t help you get through this, but something that my team designs and builds maybe emotionally helps you get through, or clinically get some type of evidence in a safe program that that that helps your case, like it’s things like that that really hit home at night, where you feel like you’re contributing, and yeah, so I think you know said healthcare is one of those things I got in this thinking two, three years at the most, then 21 years later, and I can’t imagine doing anything else.

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Nestor Aparicio  23:59

Russ Adler’s here, he is a so you listen to my show back in the day with ers fan. Well, I just probably annoyed you. You

Russ Sadler  24:07

were now, you were now, you were the only..

Nestor Aparicio  24:09

I annoy everybody at some point.

Russ Sadler  24:11

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So, your, your, your show was played on most construction sites back in the 90s, and you were the only show that had the Jim Rome show back in the day.

Nestor Aparicio  24:19

Oh, that’s right. In the afternoon,

Russ Sadler  24:22

yeah. So, we, you had the morning show, and then gym room for us was, we knew when a show was over, or work that was almost done. So, and, and then

Nestor Aparicio  24:30

I was about to come on, it was beer time, right?

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Russ Sadler  24:32

Yeah, and nothing, nothing brings a construction crew together like sports, so you know, it’s the, the arguing of my team’s way better than yours, and it’s that constant. And then he had the Ravens coming to town, and it was just like this great era of sports, and Cal was still around, and you know, it was the, it was those great days of like something new was coming, Cal was, you know, working his way out the door, but it was, yeah, no, we were big fans of your show, and it got a lot of construction sites had your stuff on,

Nestor Aparicio  24:57

I’m still here, and you know. Despite having no listeners, everybody hears what I say. It’s incredible how this has worked over 35 years with no listeners, but I’m appreciative that you’re there and you’re building good stuff. And I will absolutely take you up on on your offer to tour around, and I’ll try to grab my wife, maybe bring her over. She can. I would love to give you guys a tour.

Russ Sadler  25:19

Always interested, especially with patients. Think I always ask my first question that the one design is, tell me what you really do not like about existing space or my design. Like, tell me what you don’t like, because that’s we don’t improve. If I don’t know what we’re doing wrong, I can’t improve.

Nestor Aparicio  25:32

8

Listen, I’m gonna tell, and you tell Christina, Greg, all of them over there. Tell right on up to pair everybody over there. My favorite visits to your campus are the ones where I don’t have to give blood, so if I’m coming out and bring a crab case and just hanging out, that’s my favorite time to come to GBMC. I think

Russ Sadler  25:48

sounds like a good time.

Nestor Aparicio  25:49

I got my, my belt for you here. I collect the 1971 NFL and MLB belt buckles, because I got into belt buckle collecting with my rock and roll belt buckle. So I just want to show you that I’m, you know, I stare at a ers as I stare at a Steelers belt buckle all day long, so they’re, they’re here, they inspire me from my sports background, you know,

Russ Sadler  26:10

you know, I am a Niner fan, but I definitely, I am not a Steelers fan, so I do have that in common, Ravens fans, Steelers had opportunity,

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Nestor Aparicio  26:18

do you root against the Ravens

Russ Sadler  26:19

now? No, beard against the Ravens. I basically root against anybody in my not any anybody in nine years division, and pretty much I vote for anybody who plays the Cowboys.

Nestor Aparicio  26:29

Okay,

Russ Sadler  26:29

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so you know

Nestor Aparicio  26:31

that in common,

Russ Sadler  26:32

the Stewards lost to the Cowboys in the Super Bowl when I’m still upset about it. You know, Neil O’Donnell gave that game away, he could have beat the Cowboys in the Super Bowl, still upset about

Nestor Aparicio  26:40

it. Did anybody ever like, how much grief did you take in the late 90s for sticking with the being a Baltimore guy?

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Russ Sadler  26:47

13 quarterbacks in 10 years, I got beat down hard, but you know, I think you know, I, it

Nestor Aparicio  26:54

could be worse. You could have been a Washington football fan the last 30 years. Think about

Russ Sadler  26:57

it, could have been them, could have been a Browns fan, you know.

Nestor Aparicio  26:59

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I took it so hard on the Washington football fans for all of those years, that like the last 10 years after we won the second Super Bowl, I just felt sorry for him, you know what I mean, like I, if I, if I’m at Springsteen tonight and if somebody’s wearing a hail to hail hat, I’m like, good on you, dude, but you remember that that was ugly 30 years ago, people to your don’t, these kids today don’t remember how much we hated wash Washington

Russ Sadler  27:24

right now. No, that’s.. I don’t think I worry about sports in the future. If, like, sometimes these kids don’t really understand sports, or they just do

Nestor Aparicio  27:31

whatever’s trendy, they’re not having nearly as much fun as we had with it. They’re really

Russ Sadler  27:34

whatever’s trendy on TikTok. I think they just go to the game to get the videos.

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Nestor Aparicio  27:38

What are these kids waving the shirts out in left field? That looks like fun. It looks, you know, like if I were of that age, I would do that. At this point, I’m just trying to keep my sleeves down from your doctors and nurses over GBMC and staying healthy.

Russ Sadler  27:49

No, I feel bad for these kids. I don’t know what oral magic is. It upsets me, like that era of oral magic.

Nestor Aparicio  27:54

Well, we’re trying to get it back. My name’s Aparicio, and I’m still trying to spread the 1966 love here, Russ. So Russ Sadler is here. He builds things over at GBMC. He is a senior director of facility planning, design, and energy management. Man, I got so many things I could talk to you about, because you’re in like a lane that I’m interested in, in regard to saving money and building things. And I look, I mean, I spend a lot of time traveling the world. I was in Vegas last week. I go to New York all the time. Part of it is I’m not an architecture guy, but I do like looking at stuff. I’m sort of artsy fartsy in that way, and looking at how things are. When I go into a bathroom, I’ll just look at how the plumbing is constructed, and who picked the steel, and I wonder why they picked that color of gray metal on the walls. And so I am sort of weird in that way, and I’m sure in your space you notice everything, right? Like, it must be a curse.

Russ Sadler  28:46

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Oh, yeah, I annoy my wife to know every time he goes somewhere. I’m always looking at how things are built, or why they did that, and

Nestor Aparicio  28:52

I knew it. Why did they do this? The engineer, my wife’s an engineer. Why? Why did.. because that’s the way Russ wanted to do it at GBMC, is what I would say.

Russ Sadler  29:01

Yeah, my wife always, yeah, she hates going places with me some days, because I always look at everything, I’m like, why did they do this way, or why is it like this, or why is it like that, and she, yeah, so she’s used to it, but yeah, no, I, you know, I can’t take the credit, we have such an amazing team here of people who really lean in, of, you know, I have, I tell her, I have the best team in the world. I think we go.. I think we’re better than any healthcare team out there when it comes to designing space. We don’t just build a space, we also.. we do operational management, which is.. I build the race car, then I have a team that they basically teach the clinicians how to drive the race car. We have a.. we have a nurse on our team, and she’s our director of project management, and so we don’t just build it. We make sure it can work, you know? It’s not like, here’s the keys, this is your problem. Now it is, we’re going to build it, we’re going to train you how to use it, we’re going to go through every detail this building, so when that clinical staff, and when they hit the floor, there’s no questions of how to, where’s my IVs at, or where’s the storage room, or how do I use, where’s the bathrooms at. We were turnkey services, I said. We try to do everything we can to make sure that we don’t slow down the clinicians and slow down patient care on day one. We want patients to come in and know how to deal with this. Is a new building, I don’t know where this is, like that should never happen. So we try to think of everything. There’s always things that we don’t think of, and we use those as lessons learned. But yeah, I pretty much analyze every building. I think I walk around, any vacation, any hotel room, I’m constantly, I’m that annoying person who’s constantly trying to figure out why something was built a certain way.

Nestor Aparicio  30:26

And as the guy who spent far too much time in hospitals when my wife was fighting for her life 12 years ago, I am appreciative of all of the thoughts that go into making the experience better. And you know, Lord knows, when you’re sitting there and she’s fighting for a life and you’re staring at her and she’s hooked up to a bunch of equipment in a coma, you’re looking at it and saying, you know, where do I find this, how do I get that, and

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Russ Sadler  30:51

it’s the scariest moment in one’s life, nobody should have to worry about how do I get into the bathroom or how do I call my nurse when they have something such a big thing going in our life, the last thing I want them to think about is, I don’t know how to call my nurse, or I don’t know how to, you know, I don’t know where to, the bathrooms are, I don’t know where the pharmacy is, like that’s the, you know, and I preach that to my contractors, my builders. I tell them every day, like, when, if you build a GBMC, if you’re a contractor here, you have to respect, you know, and know the room, the people here, you know, some people may be having the best day their life, new child, some people are having the worst day, and I don’t want them to remember you BS-ing about the Ravens game or to who’s losing during this huge life event for them, you’re to be seen, not heard, do your job, do your job well. I really emphasize that everything we do can have impacted a patient, positive or negative, and you have to choose which one it’s going to be. I like to think our designs and our team impacts a positive. I don’t want our teams and our construction workers to have a negative impact, and that’s like my, my, my working here speech 101 is everything you do will have an impact to that patient for the rest of their life. You may not remember your conversation, but if they just lost their loved one, I promise you they’re going to remember hearing you complain about something outside their room, that’s what’s going to mean, and I don’t want that.

Nestor Aparicio  32:05

Well, it’s, you know, it’s always tough in healthcare, and I’m very appreciative of the experience that I’ve had over GBMC, and I like having all the doctors on, and I even like having the senior director of facility planning on, even though he’s San Francisco 4900 Street, you know, I was going to be a real wise ass with you, and grab a copy of Purple Rain Two, and offer it to you, and yeah, I just figured you probably didn’t like the end, you know, you wouldn’t want to be Purple Rain Two,

Russ Sadler  32:30

I hear, you know, it’s not, we don’t want to go through that, but

Speaker 1  32:34

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neither is

Nestor Aparicio  32:34

Jim R Ball probably at the dinner table every time we get together,

Russ Sadler  32:37

not, we, I don’t know, it’s brought his brother’s gonna pull off something good, I think. Think the Giants got.. I think they may turn around this year.

Nestor Aparicio  32:44

Jim’s been nicer to me than John lately, so I, you know, I’m on Team Jim lately, you know. So, and you know, of course, we got Jesse Minter here now, who is part of Team Jim and John. So, and listen, I’m not even going to try to recruit you to the Ravens. 30 years into this, you’re a Baltimore guy that still wants to be a er fan,

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Russ Sadler  33:02

yeah.

Nestor Aparicio  33:02

Have at

Russ Sadler  33:03

it. I just, you know, I just can’t give it up, but you know,

Nestor Aparicio  33:07

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drink your wine, eat your cheese, hang out in Santa Clara, rent it

Russ Sadler  33:12

all,

Nestor Aparicio  33:12

have a good time with all.

Russ Sadler  33:13

I was secretly hoping Lamar being a Niner uniform, I was like, come on, like he’s going good, like just maybe he wants to trade, I’ll take him in a niner uniform all day long.

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Nestor Aparicio  33:21

It always says a lot when I see a guy that hangs pictures from 1981 up. It just says, “You’ve been, you’ve been looking at the front door a long time. Oh, you should put some Steve Young on the wall. There’s some.. there was some good Steve Young stuff there.

Russ Sadler  33:32

Yeah,

Nestor Aparicio  33:33

Stan Humphries, that was a big Super Bowl.

Russ Sadler  33:35

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Yeah, my office is a shrine. I got some Young stuff, I got some Dwight Clark stuff, I got some boosts. This is all the stuff that I can’t have in my house,

Nestor Aparicio  33:43

right? Because your wife’s a Raven fan, because she knows what’s good. Okay, good. I got it all right.

Russ Sadler  33:47

Basically, yeah,

Nestor Aparicio  33:47

knows a lot about senior director of facility planning, second place in football, at least on that one day by a yard. I, you know, they just should have ran the damn ball with Frank Ford, but nonetheless, this is

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Russ Sadler  33:59

this was going so well. Let’s not..

Nestor Aparicio  34:01

I know it was having a good time. Our friends at GBMC are doing great things over on campus, including, and I appreciate you talking so much about the Safe program, because I am wearing the Walk a Mile in Their Shoes shirt, which I wanted, the red one, they gave me the gray one. At some point, I’m gonna get, like, the little, little, you know, like a GBMC little thing on the side, but in the meantime, what’s summertime? I got a T-shirt now. It’s perfect. I’ll get the sweatshirt for the winter. I am appreciative of our partnership with GBMC. They put us out on the road, doing the Maryland Crap Cake Tour. We’ll be doing that all during June at some new locations. It’s true, I’m coming to Arbutus. I’m going to talk about that a little later on in the week. We’re also going to Rosedale on some other places that we haven’t been. We’ll be back at Coco’s, we’re back at Costco, back at State Fair, little later on in July. It’s all brought to you by the Maryland Lottery. I’ll have the Maryland Treasures, as well as the Miss Pac-Man tickets to give away, and our friends at Farnham Dermer also put us out on the Maryland Crab Cake Tour, and keep us running with HVAC and plumbing. Man, you don’t know emergencies too, you have plumbing issue. I had one back here on April Fool’s Day, and it. No joke, my friends at Farnham Dermer put that fire out for me. They are the comfort guys. Something about soft pipes, and the pipes being 50 years old, so I, who knows, you facility guys, you know? You know pipes, you know, we’re trying to make everything new, but we have to refurbish some of the things we have, and that’s why we have sponsors around here, keep it real for us. Uh, big appreciation for our friends at GBMC for talking some ers and some how to serve cancer patients and how to serve the community better. We’re appreciative of our partners at GBMC. I am Nestor. We are WNST AM 1570 Towson, Baltimore. We never stop talking. Baltimore positive. Stay with us.