Southern Orthopedics & Sports Medicine will become part of the Medical Associates of Vicksburg complex beginning Jan. 1, its lead physician said.

Dr. Daniel P. Dare said patients are being notified of the move and will have the option of further care at River Region Medical Center or at Medical Associates’ parent, Central Mississippi Medical Center, in West Jackson.

“It will be like a division of Medical Associates,” Dare said, adding his new office will be finished in February and will be directly across the hall from most doctors’ offices inside the building at 2080 S. Frontage Road.

Dare, a sports medicine and orthopedic physician, has run the building just west of River Region’s West Campus, formerly Vicksburg Medical Center, for 19 years. A graduate of Louisiana State University School of Medicine, Dare has performed sports physicals for years at twice-yearly to local athletes at River Region’s main campus.

Dare joins several former River Region physicians now practicing at Medical Associates. Battlefield Express Drugs opened this fall in the same complex.  

River Region has not announced plans for the building once Dare’s practice relocates — a decision the career orthopedist indicated was initiated at the hospital’s request. Also vacant is the former Vicksburg Clinic, which was closed in 2008 when the staff was moved to The Street Clinic Physicians Practices of River Region.

Real estate on the West Campus has come up in talks involving Alcorn State University and the hospital concerning an expansion of its nursing school, Mayor Paul Winfield said last week, adding he has spoken with both Alcorn and River Region’s corporate structure. Currently, the Lorman university’s School of Nursing is on the Natchez Campus.

Financing such an expansion will be crucial. In July, the university was OK’d by the state’s Institutions of Higher Learning to borrow $47 million via a nonprofit construction affiliate to build a 1,200-bed residential complex to replace five aging dormitories.

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Contact Danny Barrett Jr. at dbarrett@vicksburgpost.com