A ribbon-cutting is scheduled for May 19 for the new Graves-Gilbert Clinic Family Care Center on Nashville Road near Lost River Cave, said hospital chief executive officer Chris Thorn.

A magnetic resonance imaging machine was recently placed at the Nashville Road construction site.

Thorn said because the MRI machine is so large, a wall in the center had to be removed to get it inside.

From the outside, the clinic looks like it is finished, but Thorn said work remains.

“The concrete needs to come up to temperature,” Thorn said. The 43,000-square-foot facility has been under construction for about a year.

The clinic will offer family care and pediatric care, he said.

Thorn said the need for the new clinic is because Bowling Green has grown dramatically in population and there is a need to increase primary care physicians in the community.

Because patient medical records are now available electronically and not rooted to the site of the main hospital, there is more flexibility to offer services off site.

“This will be convenient to the patients who live in the southern part of Warren County,” Thorn said.

Thorn said family care clinics are designed to meet the health care needs of today’s consumers.

“People don’t just get sick from 7 a.m. to 4 p.m. on weekdays,” he said.

The facility is expected to add up to 50 new jobs. The facility will have 10 health care providers specializing in pediatrics, family medicine, obstetrics, gynecology and internal medicine and will house a new laboratory with state-of-the-art diagnostic imaging.

Thorn said the new facility will be beneficial to the community, providing care to patients on evenings and weekends in addition to the usual weekday hours.

Graves-Gilbert Clinic is the second-largest independent hospital clinic in Kentucky. The Lexington Clinic is the largest.

— Follow business reporter Charles A. Mason on Twitter at twitter.com/BGDNbusiness or visit bgdailynews.com.