Peconic Bay launches Center of Excellence for cancer care

By Dr. Steven Ouzounian

When a member of our community receives a diagnosis of cancer, the world immediately changes for them, their family, and their healthcare team. That is why Peconic Bay Medical Center has made it a priority with the aid of the Northwell Cancer Institute to create a nationally accredited American College of Surgeons, Commission on Cancer, Cancer Center of Excellence to serve the East End of Long Island.

To do this we have coupled our board certified, specialty trained physicians and nursing staff with the resources of the Northwell Cancer Institute to create a new Center of Excellence to elevate the care for those in our community living with cancer to new heights.

The PBMC Cancer Center Team provides holistic, state-of-the-art, and compassionate care to all our neighbors who are living with a cancer diagnosis. To achieve these goals, we have created a multi-disciplinary team to not only improve and personalize each patient’s treatment plan, but also to place an emphasis on screening and prevention.

Similarly, we are focused on identifying the physiological and social stresses that our patients experience and mitigate the impact these issues have on their care. Finally, a new survivorship program has been organized to help support our patients throughout their entire lives, as they transition to life after cancer.

In order to achieve these goals, the Cancer Team at PBMC has created a Survivorship newsletter to keep our patients, staff, and community abreast with all of these exciting new events.

These programs include quarterly Survivorship seminars that are focused on living with cancer and flourishing, as well as screening and prevention events to help get the word out to our community. It is our intention to use this forum to spread the word to everyone on the East End of Long Island that is affected by cancer. You are not alone. Defeating cancer requires teamwork.

Together we can hope, fight, and win!

To subscribe to the Peconic Bay Medical Center Cancer Survivorship newsletter please email the PBMC Cancer Team at PBMCCancerSurvivorship@northwell.edu and ask to be part of the program to receive our quarterly newsletter and event flyers.

Dr. Steven Ouzounian is Medical Director of Quality at Peconic Bay Medical Center in Riverhead. He is also the chair of the PBMC Cancer Committee.