Urology clinic builds new surgery center

ALBANY, Ga. — Five physicians at Albany Urology Clinic lined their golden shovels Tuesday and symbolically broke ground for the clinic’s new office building and ambulatory surgery center. The new facility at Osler Court off Meredyth Drive is to accommodate growth of the combined practice and also to provide new outpatient surgical capabilities, said Michael Dukes, practice administrator for the clinic.

“A lot of specialty practices are moving toward the creation of ambulatory surgery centers,” Dukes said. “There are plenty of patient advantages to an ASC, including more reliable scheduling and, in most cases, a lower total cost.”

According to Dukes, a lower cost structure is possible for inpatient surgical care within an ASC because of a more focused approach. Dukes said both patients and insurance companies save money when procedures are done at an ambulatory center.

“We’ll be able to do about 90 percent of our procedures in the center,” said Dr. Timothy Trulock, a physician with the clinic since 1984. “We can perform cystoscopy or lithotripsy (the breaking up of kidney stones by shock waves). More serious procedures, like cancer surgery or kidney transplants, would still require a hospital stay.”

According to Dukes, Trulock is the only physician south of Atlanta and Savannah to be board-certified in both adult and pediatric urology.

Patients will undergo no greater risk from surgery at the 25,000-square-foot surgery center than at a regular hospital, Dukes said, because both facilities are subject to the same rules of cleanliness and safety.

Albany Urology Clinic opened in 1972 under the leadership of Drs. James R. Hattaway and Carl V. Hancock, established first in a small house on Jefferson Street near Phoebe Putney Memorial Hospital, according to Dukes. The clinic has upgraded its office facilities three times prior to the Osler Court move.

Physicians Hattaway, Hancock and Trulock remain with Albany Urology Clinic and are joined by Dr. Michael D. Daugherty and Dr. Scott M. Wendland. According to Dukes, Daugherty was the first in south Georgia to perform surgery with the breakthrough da Vinci robotic technique.

Dukes said completion of the new AUC facility by LRA Constructors is expected in August or September of 2013. He said he expects an addition of more than 12 new employees, bringing the total to around 32 staff members.