Surgery Center South opens after expansion

Doctors at Surgery Center South, formerly American Surgery Center, held an open house to show off an expanded multi-specialty state-of-the-art outpatient surgery center Sunday afternoon.

It took four years of planning and more than two years of actual construction to complete the massive remodeling of the eye surgery center located at the intersection of Ross Clark Circle and Fortner Street.

On Sunday, doctors, staff and patients looked around the 90,000-square-foot, two-story building and knew that it was good.

“Four years ago when we first met about this project, we had two operating rooms and it was difficult to get operating room time,” said Dr. Marnix Heersink, an eye surgeon who first moved to Dothan more than 30 years ago.

“We were operating from Monday at 6 a.m. to Friday at 6 p.m. We had no more room.”

Fellow surgeon Dr. Jorge Arango pushes out both his elbows as a hint of the crowded conditions. The space, after all, is shared by 18 surgeons and about 100 employees.

“We’ve gone from two to six operating rooms with the ability to expand even more,” Heersink said. “We decided to go ahead and set aside some extra room, knowing it will never be cheaper.”

The facility can grown into another 30,000 unoccupied square-foot space.

This multi-million dollar expansion/renovation is the fifth to the building Heersink originally purchased in 1982. At that time, he established a partnership with Dr. John Fortin and the two thought the property would be a good location to establish an eye surgery center, located somewhere between Dothan’s two hospitals.

“I came here in 1978 from Philadelphia,” Heersink said. “At the time no one was doing the kind of surgery I was doing. The procedure, phacoemulsification, was a way of treating cataracts.”

Heersink still does the procedure today in a space that is 10 times larger than it was, with a growing list of clients from three states. Business is good, the doctors agreed, in part because of an aging population.

The practice focuses on cataract treatment, which is Heersink’s specialty, and plastic and reconstructive surgeries, including vision-correcting procedures like Lasik. The additional space makes available room for more doctors and additional procedures the principle partners are currently considering.

“Even though these are difficult times economically, patients still need medical care,” he said.

And coming to the surgery center is also more cost effective because it is an out-patient facility. There is less overhead and less nurses required.

And staffers say patients love the newly expanded facility. That, and the fact that construction is finally finished makes Dr. Ken Wallace smile.

“It was like trying to live in a house while it is being remodeled,” said Wallace, a partner in the center. “Now we have these nice, spacious operating rooms.”

Heersink said the expansion and the purchase of new equipment also enables the practice to use general anesthesia, also meant to enhance the patient’s positive experience.

“We are committed to quality care in a soothing, patient-friendly calming atmosphere,” he said. “We have outdoor/indoor sitting and things that make the patient and family feel at ease. We have an excellent staff and we want our patients to have good experiences. Nobody likes having surgery.”

Eye Center South, with nine doctors on staff, is a separate entity from Surgery Center South, though both are located at the site. Eye Center South gained about 5,000 square feet of space in the renovation. Heersink is the founding father and senior managing partner with both entities.

Surgeons utilizing the surgery center include: Drs. William Bennett; Richard Bryant; Jimmy Carter; Andrew Dannemann; Jean Guy Fortin; Marnix Heersink; Allan Kelley; Kenneth Wallace; Peter Zloty; Dr Jorge Arango; Irene Ludwig; Robert Hofmann; Joe Sugg; Brent McKinley; Craig Schmidtke; Martin Margolies; Zsolt Bansagi; and Robert Lisenby.

Anesthesiologists include Drs. Bayer Cheng; Ralph Fillmore; Lewis Hunt; Kelly Hyde; Matt Jennings; Paul Johnson; Craig Nordhues; Jeff Plagenhoef; Vernon Pruitt; Gopal Reddy; Jeremy Smith; and James York.

Surgery Center South is located at 2800 Ross Clark Circle. The telephone number is (334) 793-3411. Offices are open daily from 6 a.m. to 5 p.m.