This Avid Gardener Brings Sunshine to Cancer Patients

There is a woman who visits the Boutique every Thursday. She doesn’t have an appointment in Physicians Pavilion West (PPW), where the Boutique is nestled into a corner near the third floor entrance. She is a wound care patient. Yet, she is there every week – more than once if she has an upcoming surgery. Lisa Palmer, an experienced cosmetician who manages the Sandra & Malcolm Berman Cancer Institute's Boutique, understands why she stops in.

“Sometimes people just need someone to smile at them, to help them feel that everything is okay,” Lisa said.

An outgoing, welcoming presence, Lisa spends less time behind the cash register than she does in the small shop, moving from one display to the next, personally interacting with each person who enters the Boutique.

She laughs that she is only an extrovert when she is in the Boutique. Lisa’s nearly 20 years in hair care prepared her to make easy conversation, but her true comfort zone is in her garden.

“I love hiking, fishing, swimming, camping,” she said. "I can spend hours curled in in a chair on my patio with my e-book.”

Yet in the Boutique, Lisa strikes up one conversation after another. She chats with one woman about hair care, but soon the conversation quickly expands to cover topics as diverse as vitamins and families.

“I have way too much fun at my job,” Lisa said, smiling. “I love spending time with our patients. We get to laughing and have such a good time!”

“Lisa just has an amazing way of connecting with patients and they absolutely adore her,” Volunteer Services Director, Carmen Baeza, said. “Everyone who walks out of here has a smile on their face when they interact with her.”

This year, management of the Boutique and Salon has been assigned to Volunteer Services. Lisa and her new colleague, Karen White, are GBMC staff. The rest of the team are GBMC volunteers.

Everyone – including volunteers and staff members – is looking forward to the opportunities to connect with patients and families that will come early next year when the Boutique moves into its new home in the Sandra R. Berman Pavilion, GBMC’s new home for cancer care. It will have a prominent location in the sunlit atrium and will become the Marion G. Thompson Boutique, in gratitude for the generous contributions of GBMC Board member and breast cancer survivor, Marion Thompson.

Whether it’s in a small corner of PPW or the new, more accessible location, Lisa Palmer is sure to be front and center, engaging with patients and caregivers – with everyone who walks into the Boutique – taking an interest in the things they have to say and hoping to easy their anxiety or raise a smile.

“I love my job,” she beamed. “Not everyone can say that. I’m very glad that I can.”

The patients who stop in – to shop or just to see her friendly face – show they are glad about that, too.