Local health care leaders gathered Jan. 23 at Southwest Florida Proton to celebrate the center’s phase one opening. Southwest Florida Proton is opening in two phases. Phase one includes new offices for Advocate Radiation Oncology and Lee Health, while phase two will fully open in late 2025 once Southwest Florida Proton’s IBA ProteusONE machine is fully assembled and calibrated. Advocate Radiation Oncology’s cancer treatment center offers traditional radiation treatments through Varian TrueBeam, a linear accelerator that targets and destroys tumor cells in the body using external-beam radiation. Lee Health’s diagnostic imaging center provides MRI, CT and PET scan services, including the 3T MRI that produces high-resolution images and offers a magnetic field twice as strong as traditional MRI machines.