Old Osteopathic Medical Center comes down

White coats and white hard hats — sometimes on the same person — were at the demolition celebration as the UNT Health Science Center started tearing down the old Osteopathic Medical Center of Texas buildings.

The hospital served patients at the current Camp Bowie Boulevard location from 1956 to 2004. A new building, which will hold office, laboratories and meeting spaces for the Health Science Center, will be built on the emptied property and allow the UNT satellite campus to grow in an otherwise largely developed area.

The Osteopathic Medical Center of Texas went through many expansions and name changes from the time it first opened in an old mansion and was called the Fisher Hospital, but it seemed that almost everybody at the ceremony had a story or knew someone with a story about the hospital.

Raghu Krishnamoorthy, a doctorate and research assistant professor in pharmacology and neuroscience at the Health Science Center, was at the hospital in 1995 when his son was born there.

“It’s been a long time and we’ve come a long way,” he said, watching at the building was torn down and yellow bricks rained from the disintegrating wall.

Dr. Scott Ransom, president of the Health Science Center, wore his white coat and hard hat and briefly spoke about the significance of the demolition.

“This is a day of farewell and also a day of great beginnings,” Ransom said.

Lee Jackson, chancellor of the University of North Texas System, said that tearing down the hospital, which had been empty since 2004, and replacing it with a bustling building would demonstrate the advances being made by the campus. The Texas College of Osteopathic Medicine, which briefly held classes in the old hospital, is still going strong and will have space in the new building.

“It’s a good thing the Hippocratic Oath doesn’t apply to buildings,” Jackson said right before the demolition started. “We’re about to inflict some serious harm on this building.”

See a complete story in the March 3 issue of the Fort Worth Business Press

Contact Bassett at ebassett@bizpress.net