AMARILLO, TEXAS - For a textbook case of how not to run a surgery center, let me take you back to December 1998. I had just been named administrator of a surgical facility that was about to change names for the fourth time and ownership for the third time in the span of five years. Not that anyone much cared or noticed. There were two tertiary hospitals serving this town (population 215,000). And the surgery center had earned a well-deserved Brand X reputation, physicians and the community alike viewing us with great disdain.

My task: Make Northwest Texas Surgery Center succeed where Health South Surgery Center, Amarillo Surgery Center and Amarillo Surgical Center had failed at the same address. Infuse this four-bed overnight facility with five operating suites with a sense of order and purpose, not to mention surgeons and patients.