A doctor who has practiced medicine in Fairbanks for 11 years is opening the city's first private surgery center.

At a groundbreaking Wednesday, orthopedic surgeon Mark Wade said
he wants to improve the quality of care in Fairbanks while reducing
health care costs.

The Surgery Center of Fairbanks will cater to patients who need routine surgeries lasting two hours or less and who go home the same day. The facility will offer two operating rooms and two rooms for other procedures, such as colonoscopies.

Wade says he searched the Internet and found no city the size of Fairbanks without a surgery center.

He says Anchorage has several.