Providence Physicians Services, a doctors group that's part of the Providence Health Care network here, is opening clinics specializing in epilepsy and stroke and transient ischemic attack (TIA) in a combined space in the Sacred Heart Doctors Building. A TIA is a temporary interruption of blood flow to the brain and can be a precursor to a stroke.

The clinics are expected to open this month in temporary spaces in the medical office building until their main space is completed, says Eve Bird, a project manager for Providence Physicians Services. The Sacred Heart Doctors Building is located at 105 W. Fifth, just south of Providence Sacred Heart Medical Center & Children's Hospital.

Bouten Construction Co., of Spokane, is renovating the space for the new center, located at 105 W. Fifth, which will occupy space that has been vacant. They will be staffed by five neurologists, four of whom will also become Providence hospitalists. At the clinics, the hospitalists will follow up with stroke and TIA patients they see in the hospital setting, she says.

Providence says the doctors will include Madeleine Geraghty, Timothy Powell, and Esther Rawner.

Bird says the clinic will include six exam rooms, several offices, and an electroencephalography (EEG) suite. Neurologists perform EEGs to record electrical activity in a patient's brain.