Oxford Surgery Center Celebrates 20 Years of Providing Safe, Efficient Elective Surgeries

By Alyssa Schnugg

News editor

Pre-Y2K, when a child needed their tonsils removed or a senior citizen needed cataracts removed, they were admitted into the hospital where they’d spend a few days, taking up a bed and an operating room.

Anyone needing a relatively simple surgery had no other option than to go to the hospital where they’d be subject to very sick people and possibly having to wait for their surgery due to no available operating rooms.

It was those reasons and others that made a group of people come together more than 20 years ago to open Oxford Surgery Center, the region’s first and only outpatient surgery center.

Dr. Cooper Terry, Dr. Ford Dye, Dr. Michael Lovelace and Dr. Edward Field are the founding doctors and current Board members of the surgery center.

The local surgeons, seeing a need for an outpatient surgery center, approached Baptist Memorial Hospital Healthcare Corporation 23 years ago with the idea of working together to build the center.

After working out the details with Oxford and Lafayette County leaders, the deal was made and the center opened in October 2001.

Oxford Surgery Center remains the only, multi-specialty, free-standing outpatient surgery center in the region and has served not just Oxford and Lafayette County residents, but a large part of northern Mississippi.

There have been more than 68,000 surgeries performed at the OSC since it opened.

Dr. Terry said having a stand-along surgery center makes the process easier for patients than having to go to the hospital.

“Even if it’s an outpatient surgery, it’s just such a difficult process getting in and out of the hospital,” he said. “It’s a big parking lot, long way to walk. Then you’re sitting there waiting for your surgery and then there’s a big car accident and your elective surgery gets bumped.

“With the surgery center, you park close to the building and you have your surgery and after 45 minutes in the recovery room, you’re out of there. We start early so folks are often home by lunchtime.”

Terry said it’s also safer for people having elective surgery to be separated from the often, very sick people at the hospital.

“In the hospital, you’re around draining wounds, infections, COVID,” he said.

Bill Henning, administrator and CEO of BMH-North Mississippi in Oxford said the OSD has made a positive impact on healthcare.

“The Oxford Surgery Center has accomplished a lot during its first 20 years and has positively impacted the health care community by offering additional options for those who are in need of surgery,” Henning said. “The partnership between Baptist and OSC has been a natural one, as our goals align, of providing high-quality, value-based care for our patients.”

OSC has consistently scored at the highest levels of quality as measured by national benchmarks. This includes measures of Quality of Care, Patient Outcomes, Patient Safety and Patient Satisfaction.

The OSC has recently partnered with Blue Cross, Blue Shield of Mississippi in regard to total hip and knee replacement surgeries.

As of Jan 1, 2021, the OSC has been the exclusive provider, in north Mississippi, of BCBS outpatient total hip and total knee replacements. The OSC has performed 316 total joint surgeries since October of 2020. 

Dr. Dye, an ear, nose and throat surgeon, often has young patients who need tonsils removed or tubes put into their little ears.

“The Surgery Center is a much less intimidating place for children,” he said.

Other than when all elective surgeries were shut down at the start of the pandemic, the OSD has been able to keep doing elective surgeries over the last two years.

“People are hurting and it can really cause problems to delay their surgery,” Dye said. “We’ve been able to keep going because the OSC doesn’t have the in-patient demands that a hospital has.

“OSC has been a real benefit to our community and the communities around us.”

For more information about the Oxford Surgery Center, visit its website or call (662) 234-7979.