Updated on Jun 30, 2022 | Featured
Sandra Masur, PhD, at the podium, congratulated the Jacobi Award recipients, from left: Louis R. DePalo, MD; Celia M. Divino, MD; Ian R. Holzman, MD; Leslie Dubin Kerr, MD; Alice C. Levine, MD; Eric J. Nestler, MD, PhD; and Jonathan S. Stamler, MD.
Seven physicians who have distinguished themselves in medicine or biomedicine, or extraordinary service to The Mount Sinai Hospital, the Icahn School of Medicine at Mount Sinai, or its alumni, were honored with the 2017 Jacobi Medallion—one of Mount Sinai’s highest awards—on Thursday, March 16, at a special event held at The Plaza. Donald Bergman, MD, MSH ’77, President of the Mount Sinai Alumni Association, opened the evening’s events, and Sandra Masur, PhD, Chair of the Jacobi Medallion Award Committee, introduced the recipients.
Dennis S. Charney, MD, Anne and Joel Ehrenkranz Dean, Icahn School of Medicine at Mount Sinai, and President for Academic Affairs, Mount Sinai Health System, addressed nearly 325 alumni, donors, faculty, and staff at the award ceremony, including Kenneth L. Davis, MD, President and Chief Executive Officer, Mount Sinai Health System, an alumnus of the medical school class of 1973.
“We have invested in the development of intellectual property, patents, and novel partnerships with industry,” Dr. Charney told the audience. “Exciting discoveries have poured forth, including a new understanding of the role of the microbiome in Crohn’s and colitis diseases. We’ve identified genetic risk factors for Alzheimer’s, Parkinson’s, autism, and other mental illnesses, and developed new therapies for multiple myeloma, melanoma, depression, and avian flu, to name just a few.” These advances, he said, were a tribute to the generosity and support of Mount Sinai’s alumni and to the dedicated educators who carry out “Mount Sinai’s longstanding tradition of excellence.”
The honorees are:
Louis R. DePalo, MD, MSH ’85, Sarah and Eric Lane Professor of Pulmonary Medicine, Clinical Director, Mount Sinai-National Jewish Health Respiratory Institute
Dr. DePalo is an expert in pulmonary, critical care, and sleep medicine. His research interests include the study of human airway smooth muscle cell function, sarcoidosis, and advanced lung diseases. He has published important articles in peer-reviewed journals and has received numerous grants, American Lung Association research awards, and a National Institutes of Health career development award. Dr. DePalo is highly experienced in implementing new technology for use in medical education, patient care, and the distribution of information throughout the medical community.
Celia M. Divino, MD, MSH ’97, Stanley Edelman, MD Professor of Surgery, Chief, Division of General Surgery, Vice Chair for Education and Quality, Program Director, General Surgery Training Program
A surgical educator, leader, and innovator, Dr. Divino has extensive experience in advanced minimally invasive techniques. She established Mount Sinai’s Surgical Simulator Center to help residents hone their technical skills in both minimally invasive and traditional procedures. Dr. Divino has been listed among the “Best Doctors in America” and has been included in New York magazine’s Top Doctors list since 2014. Within the Mount Sinai Health System, Dr. Divino maintains oversight of the Quality Assurance, Surgical Education, and Performance Improvement Committees, and the American College of Surgeons National Surgical Quality Improvement Program.
Ian R. Holzman, MD, Professor of Pediatrics, Division of Newborn Medicine, Jack and Lucy Clark Department of Pediatrics, Professor, Department of Obstetrics, Gynecology and Reproductive Science
Under Dr. Holzman’s leadership, the Jo Carole and Ronald S. Lauder Newborn Intensive Care Unit in The Mount Sinai Hospital opened in the spring of 2016, following a complete renovation and expansion. Dr. Holzman, who serves as the Pediatric Vice Chair for Hospital Operations and Faculty Affairs, has also been Chair of the Hospital’s ethics committee for more than 20 years. The author of more than 120 scientific articles and 36 book chapters, Dr. Holzman’s research has included studies of fetal intestinal oxygen consumption and the physiological responses to hypoxemia and anemia in both fetal and neonatal lambs. He has lectured nationally and internationally, most recently on various topics in bioethics. Dr. Holzman has received the Dean’s Award for Excellence in Clinical Medicine, the Alexander Richman Award for Humanism in Medicine, and multiple attending physician and teaching awards from both physicians and nurses.
Leslie Dubin Kerr, MD, MSH ’85, Professor of Medicine, and Geriatrics, Division of Rheumatology
Dr. Kerr leads clinical and educational programs in rheumatology for the departments of Medicine and Geriatrics. For 18 years, she served as Assistant Director and then Program Director of the Rheumatology Program Fellowship. After perceiving there was an unmet need in the rheumatologic care of the elderly, Dr. Kerr developed the geriatric rheumatology practice for the multidisciplinary Phyllis and Lee Coffey Geriatrics Practice at the Martha Stewart Center for Living. Upon completing her internship and residency at Mount Sinai, Dr. Kerr received the Association of the Attending Staff/Bella Trachtenberg Award for House Staff Excellence. She completed her rheumatology fellowship at Mount Sinai under the mentorship of Harry Spiera, MD.
Alice C. Levine, MD, MSH ’86, Professor of Medicine, Division of Endocrinology, Diabetes, and Bone Disease, Professor, Department of Oncological Sciences
Cited as one of America’s Top Doctors® by Castle Connolly and by Super Doctors® in New York, Dr. Levine focuses on patients with diseases of the adrenal, pituitary, and reproductive glands. She is co-director of a translational prostate cancer research lab, which has received grants from the U.S. Department of Defense, the T.J. Martell Foundation, the Prostate Cancer Foundation, and Prostate Action, Inc. In addition, Dr. Levine has published extensively in peer-reviewed journals and is a highly sought-after speaker in the field of prostatic and adrenal diseases. As one of Mount Sinai’s most respected teachers, Dr. Levine in 2011 received an Excellence in Teaching Award from the Icahn School of Medicine at Mount Sinai’s Institute for Medical Education. She has also received the Cullman Family Award for Excellence in Physician Communication.
Eric J. Nestler, MD, PhD, Nash Family Professor of Neuroscience, Director, The Friedman Brain Institute, Dean for Academic and Scientific Affairs
The goal of Dr. Nestler’s research is to better understand the molecular mechanisms of addiction and depression based on work in animal models, and to use this information to develop improved treatments for these disorders. A prolific investigator, Dr. Nestler has published more than 450 peer-reviewed studies and book chapters, and is active in numerous research projects that are funded by the National Institute on Drug Abuse and the National Institute of Mental Health. Dr. Nestler is a member of the National Academy of Medicine (formerly Institute of Medicine) and a Fellow of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences. He is a past President of the American College of Neuropsychopharmacology and current President of the Society for Neuroscience.
Jonathan S. Stamler, MD, MSSM ’85, President, Harrington Discovery Institute, Robert S. and Sylvia K. Reitman Family Foundation
Distinguished Chair in Cardiovascular Innovation, Professor of Medicine and of Biochemistry,Director, Institute for Transformative Molecular Medicine, Case Western Reserve University,University Hospitals Cleveland Medical Center
A Mount Sinai alumnus, Dr. Stamler is recognized for broadly influencing the biological sciences by discovering protein S-nitrosylation, a fundamental mechanism for controlling protein function, and for advancing the understanding of cellular signaling by small gaseous messengers. He has published more than 300 scientific papers and chapters, edited two books, authored more than 125 patents and patent applications, and cofounded multiple companies. After receiving his medical degree at Mount Sinai, Dr. Stamler completed his internship,residency, and fellowships in both Cardiovascular and Pulmonary Medicine at Harvard Medical School and Brigham and Women’s Hospital. Before joining Case Western Reserve School of Medicine, he held faculty positions at Harvard Medical School, Duke University School of Medicine, and the Howard Hughes Medical Institute.
Updated on Jun 30, 2022 | Community, Featured
From left: Barbara Davis, Chief Operating Officer of The Actors Fund; Brian Stokes Mitchell; and Lisa Mazie, Chief Administrative Officer of Mount Sinai West.
Mount Sinai Doctors and The Actors Fund recently opened The Samuel J. Friedman Health Center for the Performing Arts, a medical facility in a very “Broadway” location—upstairs from the Actors Fund headquarters at 729 Seventh Avenue and up the street from the Times Square TKTS booths.
The Center is open to the general public, but its services and flexible hours are targeted to people in entertainment and the performing arts. Staffed by Mount Sinai physicians, it offers primary care services, including wellness checkups, urgent sick visits, and health screenings, and is planning to add specialty services in fields like orthopedics and otolaryngology later this year. “This really is a collaboration; it’s like putting on a show,” the actor Brian Stokes Mitchell, Chairman of the Board of Trustees of the Actors Fund, said at the ribbon-cutting ceremony on Thursday, March 2.
Partly funded by a $1 million donation from the Gerald J. and Dorothy R. Friedman New York Foundation for Medical Research, the Center is a project special to the Friedman family, which has deep ties to both medicine and the arts. It is named for the late Samuel J. Friedman, a publicist who worked with performers Bette Davis and Gypsy Rose Lee—and who was the brother of the late Gerald J. Friedman, MD, founder of the Diabetes Institute at Mount Sinai Beth Israel that bears his name.
“Mount Sinai has a long history of providing primary and specialty care for the performing arts community, and we are proud to continue that legacy in our partnership with The Actors Fund,” says Evan L. Flatow, MD, President of Mount Sinai West.
Mar 20, 2017 | Featured, Research
Rosalind J. Wright, MD, MPH
The Icahn School of Medicine at Mount Sinai is establishing the Institute for Exposomic Research under the leadership of Robert O. Wright, MD, MPH, and Rosalind J. Wright, MD, MPH, two international leaders in environmental health. The Institute, the first in the world focused on exposomics, will study the effects of environmental exposures on health and will translate these findings into new strategies for prevention and treatment.
“The exposome is a new research field and is analogous to genomics,” says Dr. Robert Wright, Ethel H. Wise Professor and Chair, Department of Environmental Medicine and Public Health, and Director, Senator Frank R. Lautenberg Environmental Health Sciences Laboratory. “While genomics concerns all the genetic factors that predict health, the exposome encompasses all the environmental factors that affect your health, including nutrition, social factors, chemicals, and the physical environment, from the time you are conceived until the time you die. To understand health, you must understand both fields.” He is Director of the Institute, and its Co-Director is Dr. Rosalind Wright, Horace W. Goldsmith Professor in Children’s Health Research and Dean of Translational Biomedical Sciences at the Icahn School of Medicine.
Robert O. Wright, MD, MPH
The Institute will build upon the expertise of the Lautenberg Laboratory to develop new technologies and methodologies in exposomics. Mount Sinai’s recent investment in the field has already led to significant funding from the National Institutes of Health (NIH), including a $9 million grant in December for Environmental influences on Child Health Outcomes (ECHO), to investigate the effects of a broad range of environmental exposures on children’s long-term health, and two additional $10 million NIH grants for the Children’s Health Exposure Analysis Resource (CHEAR) program. CHEAR provides laboratory resources to measure environmental chemicals, metabolites, hormones, and other factors representing components of the human exposome. The CHEAR grants also fund a Data Repository, Analysis, and Science Center, led by Susan L. Teitelbaum, PhD, Professor of Environmental Medicine and Public Health, that specializes in analyzing exposomic big data.
A major part of the CHEAR facilities’ mission will be analyzing the samples collected by ECHO, a seven-year study of 50,000 children followed longitudinally across the United States. Mount Sinai is part of a consortium that includes programs in Boston and Virginia and will recruit 5,000 of these subjects. The Wrights are part of the committees now setting up protocols for the national ECHO study.
The doctors have been collaborating for more than 20 years. They first met in medical school at the University of Michigan. Rosalind Wright specialized in critical care and adult pulmonary medicine and Robert Wright in medical toxicology and pediatric emergency medicine. Over the years their interests converged, in large part because they were both concerned by the environmental issues that brought their patients to the hospital. “For me it became an issue of prevention,” Dr. Rosalind Wright says. “Taking care of someone with very advanced, end-stage lung disease, I could adjust medications so the patient could walk a little farther or sleep a little better. But I thought, ‘Where do we start so that we can give people a healthier life overall, as well as help them live longer?’ Getting them to stop smoking, for example, has a small effect. But if we go back to the root of the unhealthy trends, we can have a huge impact. For example, I was struck by the data showing that if a mother smokes during pregnancy or she experiences high stress in pregnancy, the child will have decreased lung function by age 6 or 7, and that lower lung function will track over their life and make them more likely to develop chronic lung disease.”
The new Institute will expand exposomics into research programs in disciplines across campus, including personalized medicine, cancer, women’s health, aging, immunology, and clinical trials. “Intuitively, we all know that our environment plays the major role in shaping our health, but until recently the tools to measure environment on an ‘omic’ scale didn’t exist. That’s the future, and it aligns with the changes happening in health care,” Dr. Robert Wright says. “As Mount Sinai’s leadership says, population health, not fee for service, is the future, and that means prevention. Investing in understanding exposomics will give us the tools for prevention.”
Mar 20, 2017 | Community, Featured, Global Health
His back to the camera, Donald M. Kastenbaum, MD, left, with members of his Mount Sinai team and staff at the General Hospital of Ningxia Medical University in Yinchuan, performed a knee replacement procedure that was broadcast to more than 1,000 people gathered at the hospital auditorium and four local hospitals.
Donald M. Kastenbaum, MD, has been traveling to China each year for more than 15 years to teach orthopedic surgeons the latest techniques in orthopedic hip and knee surgery. This year, he and his four-person team at Mount Sinai Beth Israel were invited by the Chinese government and the General Hospital of Ningxia Medical University, in Yinchuan, a city of nearly 2 million people about 400 miles southwest of Beijing.
Dr. Kastenbaum is Physician-in-Chief and Vice Chairman of the Department of Orthopaedic Surgery at Mount Sinai Beth Israel. His team included Albert Toe, PA; Matthew Renner, PA; Jin Hee Choi, RN; and Suriya Sriprasertying, RN.
The group’s three-day visit in early February involved a 13-hour flight to Beijing and a two-hour flight to Yinchuan. The next morning, Dr. Kastenbaum began giving the first of multiple lectures—with slides and case studies in English and Chinese—followed by hospital rounds and several total knee replacement surgeries.
“It was an amazing opportunity to share our knowledge with our counterparts in China and allow our team members to learn firsthand about medical practices in another part of the world, all while building the Mount Sinai brand,” says Dr. Kastenbaum, who is also Vice President/Medical Director of Perioperative Services for the Mount Sinai Health System, and is considered an expert in operating room safety and efficiency.
Members of the Mount Sinai orthopedics team at the hospital in Yinchuan: from left, Matthew Renner, PA; Suriya Sriprasertying, RN; Donald M. Kastenbaum, MD; Jin Hee Choi, RN; and Albert Toe, PA.
During the visit, Dr. Kastenbaum was able to put into practice his belief that success in the surgical suite is based not just on his own skills—honed over the course of performing more than 6,000 total hip and knee replacements— but on his team approach. This approach methodically addresses a range of interoperative issues, such as how to set up the operating room, ensure sterility, account for all instruments, and decrease the risk of infection, while focusing on efficiency, not speed. It also recognizes the importance of preoperative planning and postoperative care.
In 2002, Dr. Kastenbaum was first invited to speak and perform live surgery at a major orthopedic conference in China, which spurred his interest in helping to improve medical education internationally. This eventually led him to develop a fellowship program and to become co-chair of the International Congress for Joint Reconstruction (ICJR) Chinese Orthopedic Association meeting, the most widely attended yearly meeting of orthopedic surgeons in China, which attracts nearly 15,000 people.
Over the years, Dr. Kastenbaum’s orthopedic fellowship program has grown to become one of the most sought-after programs for Chinese orthopedic surgeons. Many of his former fellows are now chairs of their own departments or presidents of their hospitals.
“I am very grateful to be in a position to help so many of these doctors from around the world who want to learn about best practices so they can, in turn, help their patients,” he says. “They do so much good for their patients, often with less equipment than we have in the United States. We can also learn more from traditional Chinese medicine, which has tremendous merit.”
Dr. Kastenbaum says he is looking forward to another educational trip with his team next year. “We want to continue and are expanding to other parts of the world because we have only just begun to make a difference in improving surgical outcomes in patients,” he says.
