SLR’s Stroke Center delivers rapid, coordinated responses to stroke patients by employing a multidisciplinary team, consisting of board-certified neurologists, neuro- and endovascular surgeons, endovascular radiologists, and rehabilitation professionals.

Director Carolyn D. Brockington, MD, Assistant Clinical Professor of Neurology, Columbia University College of Physicians and Surgeons, along with E. John Nasrallah, MD, Assistant Clinical Professor of Neurology, Columbia University College of Physicians and Surgeons, and Ji Y. Chong, MD, Director of the Stroke Prevention Program, coordinate the stroke team. They all have completed stroke fellowships at leading stroke centers in the United States, and are available around the clock to evaluate and treat stroke patients.

Assisting them are two stroke physician assistants—Christopher Tegtmeyer, PA-C and Renata Hartung, PA-C—who manage patient care on a day-to-day basis.

If a patient requires surgery, the Stroke Center works with SLR’s renown Department of Neurosurgery and Department of Endovascular Surgery to provide advanced surgical and endovascular techniques for treating stroke, such as minimally invasive, intra-arterial techniques that use catheters to deliver clot-busting medications directly into the brain.

The center’s comprehensive Rehabilitation Department has physical, speech and occupational therapists, along with social workers, to provide the most advanced follow-up regimens to help patients regain the ability to do every day tasks and get back on their feet.

The Stroke Center has a dedicated four-bed stroke intensive care unit at St. Luke’s Hospital, while the eighth floor at Roosevelt Hospital has been transformed into a dedicated neurosciences floor, including a stroke intensive care unit and a stroke step-down unit. Nurses, specially trained in stroke, staff these units, delivering the highest level of care.