In a city the size of New York, issues related to healthcare often become a matter of location rather than preference. For emergency healthcare needs, the closest hospital becomes the one used - simply by default. There are more than 500 hospitals and clinics in the New York City area, including many that provide only very specialized services - from alcohol and substance abuse treatment centers to heart hospitals.

Maimonides Medical Center is one of the city's premier hospitals. For those who speak no English or have a limited grasp of the language, you'll find the multilingual staff ready to help. Not only do hospital staff help with basic translations, they'll also help you understand the procedures being performed.

The Manhattan Eye, Ear and Throat Hospital is part of the Lenox Hill Hospital campus. The hospital itself is located on 77th Street and MEETH is on 66th Street. The two combine to offer services and procedures for those with eye, ear and throat problems, including speech issues. In addition, this is a teaching facility providing post-graduate training for those looking to hone their experience in the field. You can find more information about Lenox Hill at http://www.lenoxhillhospital.org.

When the health issues are serious, you need serious medical attention and you'll find that at several of the major New York City teaching hospitals. New York University Hospital is one of those. From cancer to weight loss, and pain management to pediatrics, you'll find more than a dozen special services centers at NYU. One of those is the stroke center, focusing on prevention, diagnosis and rehabilitation services for stroke victims, families and those at risk. For more information about NYU, see the school's website at http://www.med.nyu.edu/.

There are several Internet sites that offer information about healthcare options in New York City. You'll find one of those at http://www.newyorkmetro.com/bestdoctors/. Visitors to this site can browse news and information about healthcare in New York City, and can search the directory's listings for doctors by location, specialty, expertise or hospital. If you're willing to pay for a report of physicians that meet your specific criteria (including gender, years experience and misconduct charges), you'll find listings for some of those specialties at http://www.healthgrades.com. One of the major selling points of this type of report is that you can search for doctors who have had no misconduct charges.

The Greater New York Hospital Association lists links to many of the healthcare providers in the NY area. You'll find the links posted at http://www.gnyha.org/links/health.html.

Another source for interactive searches is at http://www.nyc.com/. You can search by the name of the service you're looking for, by category or by keyword. You can also narrow your search by entering an area of the city. Search results will give you the distance of the particular office from a particular point such as Times Square, or you can sort your results by area to find those closest to some section of the city.

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