Fear Not, Doctors Will Be In

With the departure of Dr. Anthony Knott from the Montauk office of the Meeting House Lane Medical Practice, Dr. Lara DeSanti-Siska and Dr. Elizabeth White-Fricker of Meeting House Lane’s Wainscott office, will each work one day a week in Montauk until a full-time doctor is hired.

Jay Levine, a Montauk resident, Southampton Hospital board member, and health care consultant with ECG Management Consultants, issued a strategic plan for coverage in the office in the coming months.

The office will remain open full time, with medical assistance and prescription refills provided by Ken Dodge, the physicians assistant, who will himself retire on Dec. 31.

Starting in February, a full-time nurse practitioner will begin working in the Montauk office. And as of Jan. 1, Meeting House Lane will take over responsibility of the East Hampton Urgent Care Center on Montauk Highway, currently run by Dr. George Dempsey of East Hampton Family Medicine. Once that happens, all of the medical records of Montauk patients from Dr. Knott’s office will be electronically available to the attending physician there. The clinic assists patients on a walk-in basis.

The hospital’s board also issued a reminder that the Amagansett office of Dr. Charles J. DeFrai, also of Meeting House Lane Medial is available by appointment and has access to Montauk residents’ medical records. Several physician candidates are now being interviewed by hospital officials to take over the Montauk office on a full-time basis.