The Cure For the Common Hospital

Beth Israel Medical Center The Comprehensive Epilepsy Center Steven Wolf, MD, Director; and Patricia McGoldrick, NP, MPA,MSN

What inspired you to create TheComprehensiveEpilepsyCenterat Beth Israel? The need to have a family- and child-friendly center where care is coordinated between disciplines, where patients have access to their providers and where there is continuity of care from the office and clinic to the hospital and home. These families are stressed, worried and need a group of specialists who understand what it is like to be a parent with a child with a seizure disorder.

What is a typical work day like for you? We round in the hospital in the early AM, visiting the epilepsy monitoring unit and the ICUs and then see patients in the offices. We return to the hospital before we leave at the end of the day. We have offices in Manhattan and Westchester and a big Developmental Disability Center at Roosevelt Hospital. The day is long-most days 7am to 7pm.

Why should a parent with an epileptic child come to Beth Israel? So that the seizures can be controlled and the other problems can be solved-the attention and learning issues, etc. We [also] manage all the patients ourselves, we review the tests, perform the tests. The same team does everything so the care is not fragmented. No question is left unanswered-our families need to feel comfortable and confident that their doctors are listening and understand the issues they are experiencing as well as the fears they have.

What's in the future for the Center? We are creating the ability to get some testing done at home. Plus, expanding our offices in Brooklyn, Queens and Long Island so families don't have to travel so far for office visits.

First Avenueat16th Street,212-420-2000,wehealny.org.