Peter McKenna, MD

“A jack of all trades is a master of none, but oftentimes better than a master of one.”    I haven’t found a quote that more directly describes the Emergency Physician.  On any given day, in any given hour, an Emergency Physician may deliver a baby, suture a laceration, reassure a worried parent, diagnose an advanced cancer, or resuscitate a critically injured trauma patient.  In the American medical system, the Emergency Physician is the diagnostician, the resuscitationist, the primary care provider, and the safety net.  We are the first physicians encountered by patients in the worst moments of their lives.  We are the first physicians to care for patients in cardiac arrest, with critical illness, with life and limb threatening traumas, with strokes, with heart attacks, and everything in between, from the day they are born to the day that they die.  This is what drew me to Emergency Medicine.  The breadth of knowledge, the ever-evolving scope of practice, and the constant evolution in care keep the specialty interesting. The opportunity to immediately intervene and witness, in real time, the difference I can make in a patient’s life keeps me looking forward to my next shift. 

I am especially honored to work in the Emergency Department at Stony Brook University Hospital.  As a Level 1 Trauma Center, Comprehensive Stroke Center, and Chest Pain Center, we have the opportunity to care for the sickest, most complicated patients on Long Island.  My roots to Suffolk County run deep and I am proud to call myself a “Stony Brook Lifer”, having been born in the hospital I currently work at.  I look forward to many years of service to the University Hospital in the future.