ST. CLAIR MEDICAL COMMUNITY

Robots that assist physicians with minimally-invasive surgeries are high on that list. “I think this facility has been kept up well,” Nichols says. “A lot of our employees live in this county and have pride in this facility.”

A New Beginning

Ascension St. Vincent’s St. Clair opened on Veterans Drive near the Col. Robert L. Howard State Veterans Home in December 2011. In its first incarnation, it was in a nowdemolished facility on the opposite side of I-20.

Nichols has been administrator there for eight years, while Stacey Wachs has spent her entire 25-year medical career at the hospital, including her time at its former location. Both Nichols and Wachs are registered nurses.

Contrary to what much of the public believes, Ascension did not buy out St. Vincent’s hospitals. Ascension has been the parent company to St. Vincent’s hospitals in Birmingham, Oneonta, Clanton, St. Clair County and throughout the U.S. since their inception, but only recently began branding them with the Ascension logo.

“Outpatient surgery at St. Vincent’s St. Clair bridges the gap between efficiency and patient care,” says Dr. George Crawford, a general surgeon who uses the hospital. “They have found a way to treat patients respectfully and how they deserve to be treated, while at the same time being efficient and effective in preparing them for their surgical procedure.”