Updated on Jun 30, 2022 | Breast Cancer, Community, Patient Stories
Ami Rogé with her physician, Stephen C. Malamud, MD, Associate Professor of Medicine (Hematology and Medical Oncology).
About 200 cancer survivors, their families and friends, and Mount Sinai faculty and staff, recently attended the 20th annual luncheon celebrating National Cancer Survivors Day®. At the event, held on Sunday, June 11, in The Mount Sinai Hospital’s Annenberg West Lobby, attendees enjoyed a performance by Ami Rogé, a concert pianist and breast cancer survivor who was treated at Mount Sinai Downtown-Chelsea Center. Steven J. Burakoff, MD, Dean for Cancer Innovation, Icahn School of Medicine at Mount Sinai, discussed the state of cancer care. “Given our increasing success treating cancer, there are now more than 15.5 million cancer survivors in the United States,” he said. “We must focus more of our efforts on helping our patients cope as cancer survivors.”
Updated on Jun 30, 2022 | Community
Faculty and staff from the Milton and Carroll Petrie Department of Urology, along with their families and friends, enjoyed a healthy and rigorous hike in the Hudson Valley last spring, climbing and rock scrambling 1,260 feet above sea level at Breakneck Ridge near Cold Spring, N.Y. All of the hikers successfully reached the summit, as well as Raja, the family dog that belongs to Ash Tewari, MBBS, MCh, the Kyung Hyun Kim, MD, Chair of the Department of Urology (in yellow, holding Raja), and his wife, Mamta (far right).
Updated on Jun 30, 2022 | Community, Pediatrics
WATCH: Lorraine Rodriguez, MSN, BSN, RN, FNP, discusses her special connection with Make-A-Wish.
Two members of the Mount Sinai Health System, Lorraine Rodriguez, MSN, BSN, RN, FNP, and Samantha Vasquez, LMSW, were chosen last spring to promote World Wish Day® on behalf of the Make-A-Wish ® Foundation, an international organization that has granted the wishes of more than 400,000 seriously ill children. In the past few years, Ms. Rodriguez, a nurse practitioner with the Mount Sinai Epilepsy Center, and Ms. Vasquez, a social worker within the Pediatric Hematology-Oncology Division of The Mount Sinai Hospital, have referred more than 80 children to the Make-A-Wish Foundation. The organization’s stated goal is to grant one wish to every eligible child.
WATCH: Samantha Vasquez, LMSW, explains the healing power of wishes.
World Wish Day is an annual event that honors medical professionals, donors, volunteers, and sponsors, as well as the children and their families whose lives are touched by the granted wishes. Wishes have included visits with sports or musical celebrities, serving as a firefighter for a day, or receiving a toy playhouse.
Ms. Rodriguez was honored by being featured on a Make-A-Wish billboard in Times Square and by ringing the Nasdaq Stock Market bell at the start of business, tributes that she says brought tears to her eyes. Her patients’ wishes help them heal, Ms. Rodriguez adds. “When the children come for follow-up visits you see they’re smiling, jumping, having hope. You can sense that sparkle in their eyes. They’re happy.”
Ms. Vasquez was featured in an advertisement for Make-A-Wish that appeared in TIME magazine. “It is not easy for kids to undergo a severe treatment like chemotherapy,” she says. “When I talk to them about their wishes, they smile. It is rewarding to be able to witness that joy and hope.”
Updated on Jun 30, 2022 | Community, Featured, Patient Stories, Pediatrics
Aiden Schaefer, far right, and his brother, Mason, snuggle with Professor Bunsen Honeydew, Kravis Children’s Hospital’s new full-time employee.
Two-year-old Aiden Schaefer was battling leukemia, with long hospital stays, uncomfortable medical procedures, and time spent away from his twin brother, Mason, when a gentle young service dog, Professor Bunsen Honeydew, began keeping him company as part of a new program at Kravis Children’s Hospital at Mount Sinai. Denise Schaefer says her son Aiden “fell in love instantly” with the friendly golden doodle. Aiden’s experience “was not about the medicine or the doctors, it was about seeing Professor.”
Thanks to an innovative program, Paws & Play, supported by PetSmart Charities® at Kravis Children’s Hospital, the highly trained facility dog is now a full-time employee at Mount Sinai. Kravis launched the program—the first of its kind in New York State—with a grant from PetSmart Charities. Under the direction of handlers Ali Spike, MS, Certified Child Life Specialist, Toshiko Nonaka, MS, Certified Child Life Specialist, and Morgan Stojanowski,
Follow Professor Bunsen Honeydew’s adventures on Instagram.
Child Life Program Assistant Director, Professor works with patients in the Blau Center for Children’s Cancer and Blood Disease, the Alice Gottesman Bayer Pediatric Intensive Care Unit, and inpatient units.
Working in conjunction with the doctors and nurses who care for the physical well-being of patients, Professor provides emotional support. He helps to ease the pain or anxiety that accompanies medical procedures, and long hospitalizations and treatments, while improving the socialization, motivation, and overall temperament of pediatric patients.
“At Kravis, we are surrounded by excellence, great love, and care for families,” says Diane C. Rode, MPS, Child Life Program Director. “This is a magnificent opportunity for us to continue humanizing the health care we provide.”
Updated on Jun 30, 2022 | Community
From left: Amanda Burden, Training and Outreach Supervisor, SAVI, volunteer Latoya Bennett, and Silva Sergenian, MA, Sexual Assault Forensic Examiner Program and Volunteer Coordinator.
At an informational table in Guggenheim Pavilion, Mount Sinai’s Sexual Assault and Violence Intervention Program (SAVI) in April educated visitors about the community outreach and educational programming it provides. For more than 30 years, SAVI has offered free, confidential therapy and advocacy to survivors of sexual assault and intimate partner violence (IPV). Recent funding from the New York State Department of Health has expanded SAVI’s capacity to offer free workshops at community centers, schools, higher educational institutions, corporations, and organizations to increase awareness and strengthen best practices concerning prevention of sexual assault and IPV. SAVI has more than 150 active volunteers on call 24 hours a day, seven days a week, who support survivors’ medical and police reporting options in the emergency room. The gender-inclusive volunteer program is currently recruiting through the end of September. Those interested should email savi@mssm.edu.
Updated on Jun 30, 2022 | Community, Featured
From left: Brian Meade, PE, Senior Project Manager, Planning Design and Construction; Leah Borenstein, RN, MPA, Director, Perioperative Services; and Evan L. Flatow, MD.
As the Mount Sinai Health System evolves to meet New Yorkers’ changing health care needs, Mount Sinai West is completing Phase One of a three-year plan that will vastly expand its surgical capabilities. The initiative, which began in November 2016, will enable an increase in the types and number of complex elective surgical procedures performed at the hospital, especially in the areas of Orthopedics, Neurosurgery, and Head and Neck Cancer.
The project is a key part of the transformation currently under way at the seven hospital campuses across the Health System—all efforts aimed at strengthening Mount Sinai’s ability to better serve patients.
“A large portion of Orthopedics, including hand, shoulder, and elbow surgery, along with some joint replacement and spine surgery, have already moved here from other Health System hospitals, laying the groundwork for making Mount Sinai West a center of excellence for Orthopedics,” says Evan L. Flatow, MD, President, Mount Sinai West. “Next year, we will be adding Head and Neck Cancer, as well as a movement disorders neurosurgical program, which will join the epilepsy and neuroendovascular programs here to make a Neuroscience center of excellence.”
Phase One includes a new 600-square-foot operating room and the expansion of another, the addition of three new post-anesthesia care (PACU) beds, and a completely renovated surgical reception and family waiting area, all scheduled to open in early August. The project also includes the renovation of the West 59th Street hospital entrance and lobby, and upgraded elevators to the surgical reception area.
The new reception area will streamline the surgical check-in process. It includes a bright and spacious waiting area with twice the seating capacity of the previous space, two laptop stations, two big-screen televisions, a quiet area, and two restrooms. Comfortable new seats come with individual electrical outlets for convenient phone charging. Nearby, a new consultation room enables surgeons to meet privately with a patient’s family.
“Our focus is to improve the overall patient experience,” says Leah Borenstein, RN, MPA, Director, Perioperative Services, Mount Sinai West and Mount Sinai St. Luke’s. “This really is a show stopper,” she says of the new reception and family waiting area. According to Brian Meade, PE, Senior Project Manager, Planning, Design and Construction, Mount Sinai Health System, Phase Two is scheduled for completion next March, and will include additional operating rooms, a new 3.0 T MRI, and new staff lounges.
Phase Three will add 18 private prep and recovery rooms, and is expected to be ready in October 2018. Phase Four, scheduled for completion in June 2019, will include the addition of four operating rooms and the activation of the new MRI as an intraoperative MRI, which will enable precision neurosurgical imaging in real time during surgery.
Mr. Meade says their goal is to complete the renovation for December 2019, ultimately adding six operating rooms—bringing the total to 22—and doubling the number of PACU beds to 32. Surgical support facilities for staff, upgrades to engineering systems, and an enhanced and expanded endoscopy suite are also part of the overall plan.
“Starting with convenient valet parking and the reception and family waiting area, we are designing our expansion in a patient-centered way,” says Dr. Flatow, “trying to improve the experience for patients and families going through what can be a stressful time.”
