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In 1976, I arrived in Asheville after a two-year stint as an Air Force
Plastic Surgeon at Scott Air Force Base. During Medical School in Illinois at
Northwestern then Internship and Surgical Residency in New England at the Hartford
Hospital we had a great chance to get acquainted with the Midwest and New England.
I had rotations in Durango, Colorado and Miami, Florida and with vacation visits
had a chance to visit all 50 states in a serious search for the perfect place to
live. We arrived with two little girls and with another to arrive that September
and have had a wonderful experience in Western North Carolina.
I joined J Robert Israel, M.D. in an office sharing arrangement. His practice
was Asheville Aesthetic Surgery and so I named mine Asheville Plastic Surgery and
went to work. We had office space with Bill Morgan M.D. a pediatric surgeon, in
Biltmore Village. In 1982 after considerable searching we built a building near
the Memorial Mission Hospital specifically for our combined Plastic Surgery
practices with dedicated operating room suites on the lower floor and business
space and examining rooms on the upper floors. Bert King was the architect and
did a great job. We wanted a home that looked like a home rather than an office,
that fit the sloping wind blown site and that looked like it belonged in North
Carolina. We asked for room to grow and built it about twice the size that we
needed. It was the first construction project for either of us and we learned a
lot.
As we got busier we recruited David Humphreys M.D. to join us and continued
with the office sharing cooperative model. Don Conway, M.D. joined us in 1994
and within a couple of years Dr. Israel retired.
That experience of four physicians working out of the building designed for
two lead us to make some changes in the building itself. Open porches with views
of the city were turned into workspace and doctors’ offices were subdivided to
make room for the fourth physician and staff. Parking became an issue as the
staff grew from four to eight to twelve to twenty three with an active two room
operating suite, four recovery rooms and three aestheticians each with busy
practices. The parking lot was full before the first patient arrived. Colette
Stern M.D is our latest physician to join us and with Colette a new entrance on
McDowell and a new sign marking her arrival at the Plastic Surgery Center of
Asheville.
Asheville Plastic Surgery is still here working, but with improved facilities
and in great company.
James M. McDonough, M.D.
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