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The North Shore-LIJ Health System of Long Island will open a new Specialty Medical Center in Forest Hills April 2.

The new center, located at 68-60 Austin Street, will offer care in the areas of orthopedics, neuroscience, cancer care, kidney transplants, vascular care, sports rehabilitation and general internal medicine.

The center will open with 25 doctors but Robert Dubicki, the system’s senior vice president for ambulatory care, said it hopes to expand to encompass 40 doctors serving patients. Many of the doctors will operate private practices as well as work at the center.

Dubicki said the 10,000-square foot center hopes to expand to include services for diagnostic imaging, walk-in urgent care as well as a subspecialty center for Schneider Children’s Hospital.

“As demand grows, we are looking at other very unique disease-focused services as well,” he said. “We are intending to expand the disease-focused nature of this center.”

North Shore-LIJ was looking to open a center in Queens in order to bring specialty care to the borough, Dubicki said.
“The center was created to bring a whole series of specialty medical services to central Queens and the Forest Hills location is a very convenient and accessible location,” he said.

He also noted that the center is different from other medical facilities located throughout Queens.

“It’s actually a very different sub-specialty center, very different from what we’ve seen throughout Queens,” Dubicki said. “What we are bringing is a series of sub-specialists all focused on a particular disease, whether it’s orthopedics or neuroscience. We are bringing a multi-disciplinary approach to these particular medical disorders, which we believe is a unique concept in Queens.”

He said conceiving of and building the center was an 18-month process that included pinpointing the right location and designing the facility.

Dubicki emphasizes, however, the specialty nature of the center.

“We are literally bringing in specialists whose expertise is in particular diseases or conditions,” he said.
For more information, call (718) 925-6200.