Don’t get around much anymore

Surgical Associates office on Empire Court

I feel like I get around to the medical facilities in this region as much as anybody, with the possible exception of the drug reps. So I was surprised this week when I went to talk with Dr. Kay Blanchard, and she wasn’t there.

I went to the Tompkins-Martin building next door to Mary Washington Hospital, where I had interviewed Dr. Richard Earnhardt, Blanchard’s colleague at Surgical Associates. Yet neither her name nor Earnhardt’s were on the building directory on the first floor. Uh, oh.

Before I could panic, Dr. Henry Wicker walked by and said that Surgical Associates had moved. The practice is now located in a new building on Empire Court in Spotsylvania County. I quickly drove across town and soon realized that I don’t get around as much as I thought I did.

The new offices of Hematology-Oncology Associates on Empire Court

Surgical Associates moved a little more than a year ago, Blanchard said. Its neighbor, in another beautiful, new building, is Dr. Charles Maurer and his colleagues at Hematology-Oncology Associates of Fredericksburg.

In fact, the two practices are part of an expanding medical community at the intersection of Mine Road and Spotsylvania Avenue. PL Physicians and Rappahannock Foot & Ankle Specialists are there. On the other side of Mine Road are several doctors and dentists, as well as a rehabilitation center, a group of pediatric specialists from the VCU Medical Center and a Quest lab. A Medical Imaging office also is there, as is Mary Washington’s Freestanding Emergency Department.

Of course, the big boy on the block, or at least just over the horizon, is the new Spotsylvania hospital. I suspect that its influence on the location of medical offices is just now starting to be felt.   

Permalink: http://news.fredericksburg.com/rapidassessment/2010/07/16/dont-get-around-so-much-anymore/