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Bon Secours opens new Beach facility for sports medicine

By NANCY YOUNG, The Virginian-Pilot
© May 4, 2007
Last updated: 12:38 AM

Jakob Fenger runs on an underwater treadmill at the new Bon Secours Health Center as Sue Parks monitors his workout. Fenger says the facility allows him to get in shape without overstressing his injured ankle. STEPHANIE OBERLANDER/SPECIAL TO THE VIRGINIAN-PILOT

Jakob Fenger was in the water, running; the Piranhas were nearby.

They shared a goal: being in top shape for soccer.

Fenger and the Hampton Roads Piranhas women's soccer team were training Thursday at the physical therapy and sports performance facility at the new Bon Secours Health Center at Virginia Beach.

"You can do a lot of things in here that you can't do otherwise," Fenger said of the underwater treadmill he was using to rehabilitate an ankle injured in a professional soccer game last summer.

The Bon Secours center, which by the end of the month also will have outpatient surgery and diagnostic imaging centers open, is the latest sign of the competition for the health care business in the southern half of the city.
About a mile away is the Sentara Princess Anne Health Campus, which opened in the fall. That complex includes a free-standing emergency department and centers for cancer treatment, outpatient surgery and diagnostic imaging.
Though it's unlikely both will get it, Sentara Healthcare and Bon Secours Hampton Roads Health System hope eventually to win permission from the state to build hospitals at their respective sites in the Princess Anne area of the city. Currently, the Beach's two hospitals - both Sentara facilities - are in the northern part of the city.

The most distinctive aspect of the Bon Secours center, which cost more than $18 million, is its emphasis on sports performance. The Piranhas - which include a women's team and a men's Premier Development League team - followed the In Motion Physical Therapy and Sports Performance group when it moved into the Bon Secours center last month from elsewhere in the city.
"It's just such an expanded facility," said Marcie Laumann, owner and general manager of the Piranhas. "It really gives us an edge over the teams at this level because they just don't have that."

The group will work with athletes of all ages and abilities, said Marne Naas, program director for In Motion. Those looking to improve their golf swing or pitching prowess can have their biomechanics analyzed.The center also has a six-week program aimed at female athletes in middle school and high school to help prevent tears of the anterior cruciate ligament in the knee, something to which women are particularly susceptible.

Fenger, who will play on the Piranhas' PDL team, has been running on a treadmill in a small pool that's equipped with water jets for resistance. Working out in water enables him to get in shape without overstressing his ankle as it heals.

Before he could exercise on the treadmill, it was difficult getting a tough workout in, which, he admitted, made him a little crazy and perhaps less than a joy to be around.

"Ask my wife," he said.

·  Reach Nancy Young at (757) 446-2947 or nancy.young@pilotonline.com.

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Bon Secours Hampton Roads Health System is a leading health care organization known for providing care for the whole person with grace and clinical distinction. Bon Secours brings together a network of hospitals, primary care practices, ambulatory care sites and continuing care facilities to provide quality health care services to the residents of Hampton Roads. Bon Secours, which employs more than 4,500, includes: Bon Secours DePaul Medical Center, Bon Secours Maryview Medical Center, Mary Immaculate Hospital, Bon Secours Health Center at Harbour View, Bon Secours Maryview Nursing Care Center and St. Francis Nursing Center.

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