Albany Med announced new roles for senior leaders. “As we serve our community through the pandemic for all our patients’ needs, we also look to further evolve the Albany Med Health System­ – a partnership of hospitals dedicated to elevating one standard of quality care across our region. We must also navigate the increasingly complex health care landscape with the highest degree of excellence,” said Dennis P. McKenna, M.D., president and CEO of Albany Med. “I am very pleased to announce that several of our leaders will guide us to meet these goals in new capacities.” Learn more.

 

“During COVID-19, academic medical centers were the epicenter of the epicenter, the cutting edge in research responding to COVID-19. Much of the needed trials, much of the needed research, the patients were here and the discoveries and treatment remain in centers like this. We need to continue funding them. We need to support them in order to make scientific progress,” Maloney said. Learn more.

 

In December 2020, Academic Medicine—the journal of the Association of American Medical Colleges—published “Learning from the Past and Working in the Present to Create an Antiracist Future for Academic Medicine.” The pointed op-ed sounded a clarion call to action. “The murders of George Floyd, Breonna Taylor, Rayshard Brooks, and others by the police in 2020 sparked demands across the United States and around the world to end systemic racism against Black people,” wrote the coauthors, a subset of the journal’s editorial board who are all members of groups underrepresented in medicine. Learn more.

 

More than 500 years ago, famed artist and scientist Leonardo da Vinci created “The Vitruvian Man,” a drawing that helped to bridge the gap between art and science. Today, students at the College of Osteopathic Medicine (NYITCOM) continue to “draw” upon da Vinci’s legacy by creating their own anatomical works of art. What began as an experiment led by NYITCOM Assistant Professor of Anatomy Julia Molnar, Ph.D., is now ARTery, the Art in Medicine Interest Group. Learn more.

 

To give principal investigators (PIs) the tools they need to become better mentors—especially to their graduate students and postdoctoral fellows from groups underrepresented in biomedical research—Einstein’s office of diversity and inclusion, in partnership with the Graduate Division and the Belfer Institute for Advanced Biomedical Studies, is launching an eight-hour training program for all faculty who have trainees. The sessions kick off next month. Learn more.

 

Can the bacteria in your gut influence addictive behavior? That is the question that Katherine Meckel is studying and trying to answer. Currently a fifth-year PhD candidate in neuroscience at the Icahn School of Medicine at Mount Sinai, Ms. Meckel is one of 31 young scientists from across the country to be honored with the National Institutes of Health (NIH) Blueprint Diversity Specialized Predoctoral to Postdoctoral Advancement in Neuroscience (D-SPAN) Award. The award will provide Ms. Meckel with a six-year, $447,000 fellowship to fund the remaining two years of her PhD studies, as well as four years of postdoctoral research. The D-SPAN Award recognizes outstanding trainees from historically underrepresented communities in the sciences. Learn more.

 

Joseph Nicholas “Nick” Charla was ready to celebrate. He and 40 classmates had recently finished their first year at Albert Einstein College of Medicine. They gathered at the Bronx Brewery this past July to mark the occasion and meet each other at their first in-person event since the COVID-19 pandemic began in early 2020. “But five minutes in—no one even has a drink yet and people are still walking in—I turn around and see a gentleman on the floor actively having a seizure,” recalled Mr. Charla. “People were confused and staring and not sure what was going on.” Learn more.

 

The Icahn School of Medicine at Mount Sinai is among the 22 recipient institutions of the largest U.S. collaborative funding effort for equity in biomedicine, a $12.1 million effort made possible by the Doris Duke Charitable Foundation in concert with the American Heart Association, the Burroughs Wellcome Fund, the John Templeton Foundation, the Rita Allen Foundation, and the Walder Foundation. Grants from the nation’s largest funding collaborative advancing equity in the biomedical sciences, the COVID-19 Fund to Retain Clinical Scientists are designed to support the strengthening of policies, practices, and processes to advance the research productivity and retention of early-career faculty members whose family caregiving responsibilities have intensified due to the COVID-19 pandemic. Learn more.

 

The Northwell Health Truly Awards celebrate the physicians of Northwell Health Physician Partners for the positive impact they make to change our lives. On November 16, physicians and team members joined a virtual celebration to recognize the 2021 winners of the Truly Awards, Patients’ Choice Award and a new honor, The Dr. Lawrence Smith Lifetime Achievement Award. The inaugural Dr. Lawrence Smith Lifetime Achievement Award was bestowed upon Dr. Lawrence G. Smith, MD, MACP, and honors a Northwell Health Physician Partners leader who embodies a commitment to clinical excellence, education, mentorship and the promotion of diversity, equity, and inclusion. Learn more.

 

Steven D. Schwaitzberg, MD, chair of the Department of Surgery in the Jacobs School of Medicine and Biomedical Sciences at the University at Buffalo, was inducted into the American College of Surgeons Academy of Master Surgeon Educators earlier this month in a virtual ceremony. The academy recognizes surgeon educators who have devoted their careers to surgical education. Individuals are selected to join following stringent peer review. The academy’s mission is to play a leadership role in advancing the science and practice of education across all surgical specialties, promoting the highest achievements in the lifetimes of surgeons. Learn more.

 

An Upstate Medical University professor has been named a “world expert,” for being one of the world’s top scholars writing about mental disorders. Distinguished Professor and Vice Chair of Research of Psychiatry and Behavioral Sciences Stephen Faraone, PhD, received the honor from ExpertScape, which places him in the top 0.1 percent of scholars writing about mental disorders in the last decade. Learn more.

 

New York Medical College was well represented in Westchester Magazine’s Top Doctors of 2021 listing. The list was compiled through Castle Connolly Medical Ltd., an independent health care research company. Learn more.

 

Elad I. Levy, MD, professor and chair of the Department of Neurosurgery in the Jacobs School of Medicine and Biomedical Sciences at the University at Buffalo, has been named president-elect of the Congress of Neurological Surgeons (CNS). Levy’s CNS presidency will commence on Oct. 12, 2022, when he will receive the gavel at the conclusion of the 2022 CNS Annual Meeting in San Francisco. He previously served as secretary to the organization’s executive committee. Learn more.

 

When Scott Gerber was 23 years old, he was a cashier at Dunkin Donuts and admittedly “lost” in a master’s program at the University of Rochester Medical Center. But he took a risk based on an interest in immunology, and signed up for an advanced seminar taught by Edith Lord, a prominent immunologist and former Senior Associate Dean for Graduate Education at URMC. The course was for PhD candidates. Gerber’s peers called him “crazy,” suggesting the material was over his head. Learn more.

 

Diversity Night on November 11, 2021. The event is sponsored by the Offices of Student Affairs and Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion and supported by many of the school’s student organizations. Students, faculty, and staff gathered to celebrate and promote understanding of the various cultures that make up the school of medicine community. “Tonight we come together to celebrate our differences, and in doing so, we also realize how much we are similar,” remarked Lawrence G. Smith, MD, MACP, dean of the Zucker School of Medicine. “By celebrating our differences and learning together, we can expand our narrow view of who we are, let go of the things that we just assume are true, and understand how, as physicians, we can touch people from all cultures in the way they need.” Learn more.

 

Dr. Juan Cubillos-Ruiz was just five years out of grad school and an assistant professor at Weill Cornell Medicine when he had an idea for a novel cancer treatment. In 2015, he discovered that many tumors effectively shut down the antitumor activity of nearby immune cells by hijacking a signaling pathway in the cells called the ER stress pathway, keeping it chronically activated. An inhibitor that blocked that pathway would switch off the aberrant ER stress signaling, restoring antitumor immunity. With promising early results in mouse models of cancer, Dr. Cubillos-Ruiz set out to spin his findings into biotech gold and a treatment that might be a life-saver for many cancer patients. Learn more.

 

NYU Grossman School of Medicine hosted the Sixth Annual Medical Education Innovations and Scholarship Conference on November 1. The annual event celebrates and highlights achievements spanning undergraduate, graduate, and continuing medical education. This year’s event featured 50 presentations and workshops; an informative Q&A session with guest speaker, Rochelle Walensky, MD, MPH, the 19th Director for the Center for Disease Control and Prevention; and a panel of local experts on “Lessons Learned in Education During the Time of COVID.” Learn more.

 

The Maternal Safety Foundation has named Stony Brook University Hospital an Accreta Center of Excellence, recognizing its ability to provide superior care for the life-threatening childbirth complication called placenta accreta spectrum disorder. Placenta accreta is a condition in which the placenta attaches too firmly and too deeply to the uterus, and is unable to detach from the uterus after childbirth. It is a serious condition which can cause severe blood loss if not properly managed and treated. Learn more.

Touro College of Osteopathic Medicine Harlem’s Dr. Jeffrey Gardere Discusses School Shootings  

 

Dr. Jeffrey Gardere, associate professor of behavioral medicine at TouroCOM Harlem and board-certified psychologist discusses the recent shootings at Oxford High School in Michigan that left four students dead and another seven injured. Dr. Gardere discusses signs for parents to watch for when a child is having mental health challenges, actions that should be taken, the impact of the pandemic on young people and access to guns. Watch him here.

 

Since 1955, “Merritt’s Neurology,” long regarded as the standard reference work in the field, has been edited by Columbia neurologists. James Noble, MD, associate professor of neurology, now joins those ranks, as co-editor of the newest, 14th edition, with former Columbia colleagues. “Merritt’s” was first published in 1955 and authored by celebrated VP&S neurology chair H. Houston Merritt, who chaired neurology at VP&S from 1948 until 1968. Learn more.