The doctor is in: Slocum Center opens.

Byline: Tim Christie The Register-Guard

A new era in orthopedic surgery in Eugene began at 9:42 a.m. Tuesday when Dr. Thomas Wuest cut into the left middle finger of George Poling.

The 15-minute outpatient surgery on the Eugene city councilor was the first to be performed at the Slocum Center for Orthopedics & Sports Medicine, the sleek new $20 million building at the corner of Coburg Road and Martin Luther King Jr. Boulevard.

The 80,000-square-foot, four-story ambulatory surgical center is the new home for Slocum Orthopedics, the new name for the 22-doctor practice known until now as Orthopedics Healthcare Northwest.

The center officially opens Monday, but it won't take on a full slate of surgeries for about six weeks, said Wuest, president of Slocum Orthopedics. The building first needs to gain certification from the Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services. Once Medicare certification is in hand, then commercial health insurers will begin covering surgeries, Slocum officials said.

To gain that certification, a Medicare inspector was on hand Tuesday to observe the surgical team at work. Wuest performed three surgeries before noon, including repairing Poling's "trigger finger," which had an inflamed lining around the tendon.

Wuest and John Bauman, the practice administrator, estimate Slocum's surgeons will do as many as 50 percent of the 3,600 surgeries they perform each year at the new center. Some outpatient surgeries, particularly those involving sicker patients, still will be done at Sacred Heart and McKenzie-Willamette medical centers.

That percentage is likely to climb over time, with as many as 80 percent of orthopedic surgeries performed nationally projected to be outpatient, Wuest said. Advances both in surgical techniques and in anesthesia have allowed more patients to go home after surgery instead of spending the night in the hospital, he said.

Every surgery done at Slocum is one that won't be done at one of the local hospitals. Wuest said hospitals will adapt.

"We realize we're taking some business away from the hospitals," he said. But no hospital has gone out of business because of competition with an ambulatory surgical center, he said.

"The reality is, hospitals are doing just fine; physician offices are not," he said.

Sacred Heart spokesman Brian Terrett said the outpatient surgeries performed by the orthopedists represent about 10 percent of all outpatient surgeries performed at the hospital. He said the hospital has been working to develop and expand other services, such as its Gamma Knife Center, which performs precision radiation brain surgery, to help make up for the loss of business.

The Slocum Center is designed as a one-stop shop for fixing orthopedic ailments such as frayed ligaments, torn tendons and balky joints. In addition to the surgical center, the building includes physician offices and exam rooms, physical and occupational therapy, acupuncture and massage therapy, imaging including X-ray and MRI, a hydrotherapy pool, a pharmacy and a durable medical equipment vendor.

The building also includes meeting space, so doctors can host regional and national research conferences in orthopedics and sports medicine.

The building was designed and built to be as environmentally friendly and energy efficient as possible. Winner of Mayor Kitty Piercy's first sustainability award, it features low-chemical-emitting paint and adhesives, recycled materials and a minimum of polyvinyl chloride (PVC) plastic. Administrators are hoping the building attains silver certification from the Leadership in Energy and Environmental Design, or LEED, program.

The Slocum Center was constructed and is owned by McKay Investment Co., which leases it to the medical practice.

The building and the practice are named for the late Dr. Donald Slocum, a nationally known Eugene orthopedic surgeon who founded the practice after World War II. He became an expert on amputation surgery during the war, publishing the comprehensive "Atlas of Amputations" in 1949.

He later developed expertise as a knee surgeon after his son, Tom, suffered a football injury, pioneering research in the mechanics of the knee. He was a mentor to many of the Eugene orthopedic surgeons who developed expertise in sports medicine such as Stan James, Ken Singer and Robert Larson.

Today, the practice has 22 physicians, including four who are semi-retired; 13 orthopedic surgeons; one surgical podiatrist; three primary-care sports medicine doctors; and one physical medicine and rehabilitation doctor, as well as four physician assistants. The business has 140 employees.

SLOCUM CENTER

The Slocum Center for Orthopedics

& Sports Medicine, located at

55 Coburg Road in Eugene, is holding

a community open house from 11 a.m. to 4 p.m. Oct. 28.