38 Erie County Medical Center 1978-Present ECMC groundbreaking on October 27th , 1971. (left to right) B. John Tutuska, Mrs. Mildred Campbell, Harry W. Vackel, and Albert C. Rekate, MD. Construction of ECMC in the 1970s. Dr. Lawrence Bone. ECMC opens at last. In July 1978, Erie County Medical Center opened its doors after decades of planning and construction. As the community served by the hospital expanded beyond the city of Buffalo, its new name reflected its importance to the entire county and the greater community of Western New York. In the year of its opening, the opportunities available at ECMC and the community need for microvascular surgery and a surgical replant program in Western New York attracted Dr. Clayton A. Peimer, an orthopaedic hand surgeon from Boston who had recently been recruited by the University at Buffalo. At ECMC, Dr. Peimer developed a rotation in hand surgery for all orthopaedic residents, a clinical fellowship in hand surgery, and a research fellowship in microsurgery. General surgeons at the hospital had long been interested in fracture care because of the National Institutes of Health-funded research on the general aspects of trauma under the leadership of Dr. Border. Dr. Lawrence Bone, who held certifications in both general surgery and orthopaedic surgery and was a student of Dr. Border, joined the department of orthopaedic surgery in 1986 to direct orthopaedic trauma, enhancing the developing Level 1 trauma center at ECMC.