By Clyde Noel

It’s been open only a few months, but more physicians are beginning to use the Hospital Drive Surgical Center. It’s a small, state-of-the-art medical facility that is used for plastic surgery, hand surgery and pain management.

Situated across from El Camino Hospital, it’s the first of many small surgical centers that could appear when the main hospital is rebuilt to conform to current earthquake standards.

“It’s ironic, but I’m practicing in the same location my father-in-law, Dr. Aaron Fink, started his urology practice over 40 years ago,” said Dr. Joshua Korman, plastic surgeon and owner of the Hospital Drive Surgical Center. “We tore down the original building and built a surgical center for doctors to use.”

Korman’s facility is Building 9 in the long row of medical buildings along Hospital Drive. Each of the buildings on 2500 Hospital Drive is separately owned.

“Doctors bring patients here for high quality, high safety and a place where patients can feel pampered,” Korman said. “It has the latest of equipment, including endoscopic cameras and large units that can take care of any contamination.”

Korman has been on the staff at El Camino Hospital since 1995 and is a member of the clinical faculty at Stanford Hospital.

“Although El Camino Hospital provides the same services we do, there are other hospitals in the area that don’t, and some of the other hospitals are less personal and sometimes doctors and nurses aren’t as friendly to patients as we are,” Korman said. “We have more control over quality assurance in our small center.”

The facility is a natural for cosmetic surgery procedures, such as face lifts, breast surgery, skin cancer, hand surgery and even an occasional hernia. Many cosmetic surgery patients are vain; they prefer discretion when they enter surgery and don’t want everyone to know what they are doing.

“We don’t have that long walk patients have to take to reach the operating room,” Korman said. “They walk from the waiting room into the next room, which is the operating room.”

Any doctor can use the facility, as long as they are accredited and on the staff of a local hospital.

Korman said that when a patient comes into the facility, all the pre-op work has been completed on the physician’s orders. The walk to the operating room is not taxing, and all anesthetic procedures are available.

After the operation is completed, patients are moved to the recovery room, also a short distance away.

Korman noted that larger centers are less personal. In small centers like his, the doctors and nurses are more friendly toward patients.

Nurses attend to patients in the recovery room, with state-of-the-art treatment and warm blankets. They get in touch with relatives or friends when the patients are ready to leave the facility.

Korman is a graduate of Cornell Medical School. He did his residency at Stanford Hospital. In addition to his hospital work, Korman is a member of the board of directors of Interplast in Mountain View.

Interplast’s medical volunteers provide reconstructive surgeries for needy children and adults with cleft lip, cleft palate, severe burns and other crippling injuries.

The Korman Group is located at 2500 Hospital Drive, Building 9, Mountain View. For more information, call 254-1200.