Saint Vincent's Catholic Medical Center

Infobox Hospital
Name = St. Vincent's Catholic Medical Center
Org/Group = Sisters of Charity

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Caption = "Respect, Integrity, Compassion, Excellence"
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Location = Manhattan, New York City: Campuses throughout city and Westchester.
Region = New York
State = New York
Country = United States
HealthCare = Catholic
Type = Community
Specialty = Teaching, Emergency, Surgery,
Cardiovascular, Cancer,
Behavioral Health, HIV,
Orthopedics, Community Medicine.
Emergency = I trauma center
Affiliation= New York Medical College
Beds =
Founded = 1849
Closed =
Website = http://www.svcmc.org/
Wiki-Links = |

Saint Vincent's Catholic Medical Center (SVCMC), locally referred to simply as "St. Vincent's" or "St. Vinnie's", is a major teaching hospital in the New York City neighborhood of Greenwich Village.

It consists of two hospital buildings and several outpatient facilities, has over 1000 affiliated physicians, including 70 full-time and 300 voluntary attending physicians, and trains more than 300 residents and fellows. It is the designated provider for New York and New Jersey members of the U.S. Department of Defense Health Plan. St. Vincent's was the primary admitting hospital for those injured in the September 11, 2001 terrorist attacks on the World Trade Center.

Facilities

*St. Vincent's Hospital is a 758-bed tertiary care teaching hospital, at Seventh Avenue and Greenwich Avenue on the border of Greenwich Village and Chelsea. It includes:
**A Level I Trauma Center and Critical Care Center,
**A Comprehensive Cardiovascular Center,
**A Level III Neonatal ICU,
**A Comprehensive Cancer Center,
**A Comprehensive HIV Center, and
**A full service emergency department.
**Inpatient and outpatient psychiatric and addiction services
* St. Vincent's Hospital (Westchester), a behavioral health facility, is in Harrison, NY.
**Behavior Health Residential Services, a 500 bed community housing and case management program based at Bayley Seton Staten Island, with units in the five Bouroughs and Westchester.
* 3 skilled nursing facilities, including
** Bishop Mugavero Center for Geriatric Care in Brooklyn,
** Holy Family Home in Brooklyn, and
** St. Elizabeth Ann's Health Care & Rehabilitation Center in Staten Island.
* Pax Christi Hospice in Staten Island.
* SVCMC Home Health Agency, a comprehensive home care service providing care in all five boroughs of New York City.
* Several outpatient medical and substance abuse treatment centers in Manhattan, Brooklyn, Westchester and the Bronx. [ [http://www.svcmc.org/body.cfm?id=11&oTopID=11 Hospitals, Facilities and Services ] ]

History

St. Vincent's Hospital (Manhattan) has served as a medical facility for more than 150 years. Its namesake is St. Vincent de Paul, a sixteenth-century French monk. He founded the Sisters of Charity, an order of Roman Catholic nuns that focuses on care for the poor, best known for their idiosyncratic "The Flying Nun" habits. In 1849, four order nuns were dispatched to New York City on instructions from their Mother Superior Elizabeth Ann Seton to set up one of the only charity hospitals in the city. What began as a humble 30-bed hospital in a small brick house on 13th Street of Greenwich Village [ [http://www.svcmc.org/body.cfm?id=104 History and Mission ] ] has expanded over time to become a major medical and research center. It has maintained its connection to the Roman Catholic tradition, and is sponsored by the Bishop of Brooklyn and the President of the Sisters of Charity. Of interest, St. Vincent is the designated patron saint of charities, hospital workers, hospitals, and volunteers. The SVCMC network was formed in 2000, when St. Vincent's Hospital (Manhattan), formerly the St. Vincent Hospital and Medical Center of New York, merged with Catholic Medical Centers of Brooklyn and Queens and Sisters of Charity Healthcare on Staten Island, which included the newly renamed St. Vincent's Hospital (Staten Island), Mary Immaculate Hospital in Queens, St. John’s Queens Hospital, St. Mary’s Hospital in Brooklyn, and Bayley Seton Hospital in Staten Island. In 2003, St. Clare’s Hospital, renamed St. Vincent’s Hospital (Midtown), was also affiliated.

In 2005, under financial pressure from its charity involvements, burgeoning administration costs, and rising health care costs, the SVCMC system filed for bankruptcy. The system launched an aggressive reorganization effort, selling or transferring its money-losing facilities and focusing development on its main hospital, which allowed it to emerge from bankruptcy in the summer of 2007. In the name of modernizing and restructuring, it also announced plans to build a new Manhattan hospital across the street from the current facility, with a planned opening set for 2011. [ [http://www.svcmc.org/body.cfm?id=287&action=detail&ref=106 News Releases ] ]

Medical Education

SVCMC serves as the academic medical center for New York Medical College. It offers a complete and well-respected residency and fellowhip program, and also serves as a clerkship facility for students of medicine, nursing, physical therapy, and occupational therapy.
Residencies

Anesthesiology, Internal Medicine, Primary Care, Neurology, Neurosurgery, Nuclear Medicine, OB/GYN, Ophthalmology, Orthopedics, Pathology, PM&R, Psychiatry, Child Psychiatry, Radiology, General Surgery, Transitional.
Fellowships

Cardiovascular, Critical Care, Endocrinology, Gastroenterology, Geriatrics, Hematology/Oncology, Infectious Disease, Pulmonary.
Allied Health Programs

CPR, Advanced Life Support, EMT, Paramedics, Nuclear Medicine Technology. [ [http://www.svcmc.org/body.cfm?id=246&oTopID=23 Residency and Fellowship Programs ] ]

Mission

Drawing on its Roman Catholic heritage, SVCMC's emphasis is on patient-focused healthcare, with a special mission to provide care for the poor and disenfrachised.

"Respect: The basic dignity of the human person is the guiding principal in all our interactions, policies and procedures.
Integrity: Integrity is the consistency between the Catholic identity we profess and the ways in which we act it is that quality of truthfulness, which fosters trust.
Compassion: Compassion is the way we share deep concern, love and care toward each person.
Excellence: Excellence is our way of demonstrating that we can always be more, always be better." [ [http://www.svcmc.org/body.cfm?id=253&oTopID=24 Our Mission ] ]

Notable programs

St. Vincent's HIV Center
As one of the first institutions to address and treat HIV and AIDS in the 1980s, St. Vincent's HIV Center is one of the oldest, most experienced and most renowned HIV treatment programs in the US. It provides coordinated outpatient and inpatient primary care and case management services to HIV-positive adults, pregnant women, and children, and also provides HIV prevention services, AIDS education programs, HIV clinical research, and support groups. In addition, SVCMC developed the unique Airbridge Project, which coordinates care for HIV-positive patients who make frequent trips to Puerto Rico. [ [http://www.svcmc.org/body.cfm?id=335 HIV Services ] ]

Chinese Outreach Program
Due its close proximity to Chinatown in Manhattan, SVCMC has had close ties to the Chinese community throughout its history. In an effort to reach this underserved population, the hospital has opened an independent Chinese-speaking inpatient unit, has employed physicians and nurses who speak Cantonese and Mandarin, and has employed certified medical interpreters. They have also opened an outpatient facility in Chinatown, provide a free shuttle service from Chinatown to the hospital, and offer Chinese-focused healthcare services such as Acupuncture and Chinese traditional meals. [ [http://www.svcmc.org/body.cfm?id=980 Culturally Competent Services ] ]

Cystic Fibrosis Program
One of the most comprehensive and renowned CF programs in the city, the Saint Vincent's Cystic Fibrosis therapy program offers care for patients with cystic fibrosis and attracts patients from around the region.

Perinatal Hospice Center The Perinatal Hospice was founded in 2007 to meet the needs of parents who discover early in pregnancy that their baby is nonviable outside the womb. Rather than terminate the pregnancy, these parents choose to carry their baby to term. The Perinatal Hospice helps parents facilitate their deliveries.

John J. Conley Department of Ethics
Closely linked to the Bioethics Institute at New York Medical College, The Conley Ethics Department has become a leader in the study of clinical medical ethics and spirituality in healthcare. Chaired by Dr. [http://www.nymc.edu/fhp/wms/indview.asp?which=daniel_sulmasy Daniel Sulmasy] , the department aims to integrate the biopsychosocial model of healthcare within the SVCMC system. [ [http://www.svcmc.org/body.cfm?id=1192 Staff ] ]

Elizabeth Ann Seton Chapel
Because the hospital was founded and manned through much of its history by nuns, its hospital chapel is a primary focus of the hospital architecture, and is symbolically nested at the very center of the hospital. The Chapel, named for St Elizabeth Ann Seton, offers daily Mass and refuge for patients and hospital staff. [ [http://www.svcmc.org/body.cfm?id=97 Pastoral Care ] ]

Hospital Pet Care Program
Responding to the unique needs of an urban population, SVCMC instituted a program to help patients provide for the pets during their stay in the hospital. Animals are either walked and fed while they stay at home, or are relocated to care facilities or short-term foster homes. [ [http://www.svcmc.org/body.cfm?id=1321 Patient Pet Care Program ] ]

Comprehensive Cancer Center The Comprehensive Cancer Center assists with every aspect of cancer care, including prevention, diagnosis, treatment and recovery, with a focus on preventing inpatient stays through careful outpatient monitoring. Surgery, chemotherapy, radiation, even stem cell transplants are provided as day procedures, although the Center is also equipped to provide immediate emergency care. It has the only treatment area in New York City that is open 24 hours a day, seven days a week.

External links

* [http://www.svcmc.org/body.cfm?id=32 SVCMC official website]
* [http://www.svcmc.org/documents/timessmaller.pdf "New York Times" article on Saint Vincent's]
* [http://www.svcmc.org/documents/News/USNews&WorldReport.pdf "U.S. News & World Report" article on SVCMC Healthcare in the Chinese community]

References