Inside Mass General Brigham: The Phillip and Susan Ragon Building

Sylvain Lamontagne, a carpenter foreman, has spent his life constructing hospital buildings, making a positive impact in his community. Most recently, he is working on the Ragon Building job site.

In early 2024, however, Sylvain’s relationship with Mass General Brigham changed when his wife, Kim, was diagnosed with uterine cancer. Under the direction of her oncologist, Eric Eisenhauer, MD, she completed her treatment protocol, radiation and a full hysterectomy, and is now healthy and back to life as usual. “It was a really emotional experience,” Sylvain says. “It put everything into perspective.”

Informed by this experience, Sylvain intentionally treats every passerby on the construction site with extra care, even instructing his team members to walk patients to appointments themselves when needed. In this way, Sylvain says they’ve become true members of the care team and MGB community, treating patients with the same compassion that any healthcare provider would.

And Sylvain isn’t the only person working on the construction of the Ragon Building who has personal stories tying them to MGB — for many members of the construction crew, even stepping foot inside the hospital means exposure to sights, smells and sounds that can be triggering to their past experiences supporting loved ones through health issues, whether it’s a spouse who had an organ transplant or a grandchild who battled cancer. These experiences are the driving force for many of the folks working on the building, and behind their motivation to make sacrifices for the good of their community, Sylvain explains.

Daphne Hatsopoulos and her family have relied on the expert, personalized care offered throughout Mass General Brigham for more than five decades. Most recently, when her husband, George, received hospice care at home for cardiovascular disease, Daphne and her family consulted with his caregivers and made treatment decisions from the privacy of their household. Facing that moment in a quiet, comforting space helped to decrease their stress and allowed them to meaningfully support one another.

With that experience in mind, Daphne gave a $1 million gift to name a private consultation room in the Ragon Building. The George Hatsopoulos Consultation Room will be part of a Healing Village in the Herb Chambers Tower, one of the Ragon Building’s two inpatient towers. Each Healing Village will include an Atrium, a Mezzanine and a Consultation Room. With views of the Boston skyline, these bright, open spaces will serve as the main gathering areas for admitted patients and their visitors during a hospital stay. The light-filled consultation rooms, which will be equipped with smart televisions and comfortable seating, will allow families to have intimate discussions or meet with their loved ones’ care teams in private.

“Even if they are in the hospital and not at home, a patient’s family should always have a warm, welcoming area to talk and make decisions together about their loved one,” says Daphne. “It meant a lot to my family to have those conversations in a quiet, calming space. I think George would have liked to be part of providing that experience for future patients and their families.”