Surgery Center Meltdown
Wyoming Surgery Center Overcomes Rocky Start
In the late 1990s, when three docs built the Cheyenne Surgical Center in Cheyenne, Wyo., it seemed as though everything that could go wrong did, even before the doors opened.
- A month before the ASC opened, Pamela Fernon, a partner's wife, died of a morphine overdose.
- Four months into operations, the partner, anesthesiologist Chris Fernon, MD, turned in his medical license and later admitted to a morphine addiction. In a telephone interview, Dr. Fernon says that his wife had injected 4ccs of concentrated morphine that was left over from a procedure.
