A Provider Profile

Not for Dr. David Hornick!

Dr. Hornick is in private practice providing medical care for homebound elderly and disabled patients in Schenectady county.

If you ask Dr. David Hornick to show you his office, he will most likely point to his car, cell phone, and laptop computer. Dr. Hornick makes house calls. Not just occasionally but day-in and day-out.

Born in Claremont, N.H., Dr. Hornick's passion for caring for the homebound began soon after his graduation in 1969 from the University of Pennsylvania Medical School.

First serving as medical director of the Spring Garden Community Health Services Center in Philadephia, Dr. Hornick started a home practice specializing in medical care for elderly shut-ins in 1974. For four years he made house calls to homebound patients in Philadelphia's inner city.

He took "time off" to complete a residency in internal medicine with a fellowship in geriatrics and moved to Albany with his wife, Dr. Roberta Miller, in 1985 to work in the St. Peter's Hospital emergency department.

Dr. Hornick became medical director of the home-care program at the Albany Veterans Hospital in 1989 and left to work in St.Clare's Hospital emergency department in 1991 where he continued to work through 1998.

A July 1998 article in The Sunday Gazette, "Making House Calls," described Dr. Hornick passion and practice. At the time he was working 20 to 30 hours a week treating about 30 homebound patients and working 30 to 40 hours a week in emergency care at St. Clare's.

"When I turned 55, I thought, 'Wow. It's been 24 years since I started this.' If I practice till I'm 70, I've got 15 more years. I'd better get going." he said in the July article.

Today, Dr. Hornick is president of Homedical Associates, where he practices along with - - among others - - his wife, making house calls to over 100 homebound patients in Albany, Saratoga, Schenectady, Columbia, and Green Counties, and working the same if not longer hours with apparent endless energy and dedication. Still for every homebound patient he can treat, he estimates there are 10 more in the community needing a doctor who makes house calls.

Dr. Hornick found time to earn a master's degree in public health from the University of Albany in 1994 and continues to be active in community work. He serves on the board and is a past-president of the Capital Area Consortium on Aging and Disability.