Construction

Earlier this month, Stanford Hospital broke ground on the site for its new hospital, slated to open in 2018. As I pass through a sky walkway between the main hospital and our ambulatory surgery center, I get a spectacular view of the construction site. It's impressive. Although it seems weird, I don't think I've ever really been to a place where tons and tons of dirt are being moved (when I was little, I never had the obsession with tractors and hard hats). Supposedly, a truck is carrying out dirt every 90 seconds until October. Watching the drills, tractors, and other heavy machinery I can't name, I'm only starting to understand the scope of building a new hospital. I've seen people placed on heart-lung machines, the emergency department flooded with patients from a car accident, a 30 week premature infant in the neonatal intensive care unit. But looking out from that third floor walkway down to the well-choreographed machinery gives me pause. It's a monumental undertaking.

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