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 | Patient Stories, Your Health
Paula Klein, MD, Associate Professor of Hematology and Medical Oncology at the Icahn School of Medicine at Mount Sinai, whose research of the device led to FDA approval, explains why the new scalp cooling system is so important for patients.
Watch the story on CNN
Updated on Jun 30, 2022 | Patient Stories
With help from Mount Sinai’s transplantation team, a young daughter was able to celebrate Father’s Day with her father, a year after she donated a portion of her liver to her ailing father.
Watch the story on the CBS Evening News
Updated on Jun 30, 2022 | Patient Stories
Doctors thought Raquel White might never walk again after she was struck and dragged by a pick-up truck. Her pelvis was shattered, she suffered a broken leg and ruptured her bladder. David Forsh, MD, Chief of Orthopedic Trauma at Mount Sinai St. Luke’s, said “her case was one of the worst he had ever seen.”
Read the article in The Daily News
May 15, 2017 | Featured, Patient Stories, Research
‘‘The drug works. It gives you your life back,” says Austin Jacobson. Watch the video
The U.S. Food and Drug Administration has approved a new biologic drug that is based on seminal research by Emma Guttman-Yassky, MD, Professor of Dermatology, and Medicine (Clinical Immunology), at the Icahn School of Medicine at Mount Sinai. The drug, dupilumab, was approved in March—fast-tracked because it is a “breakthrough therapy” for adult patients with uncontrolled eczema. “It brings hope to patients who have tried everything.” Dr. Guttman-Yassky says.
One of them is her patient Austin Jacobson, a personal injury defense lawyer in Manhattan. “Living with eczema is like having poison ivy from head to toe,” he says. “You can’t sleep because you’re itching so badly. It affects every single aspect of your life.” Mr. Jacobson took part in clinical trials of the drug, which is injected every two weeks, and still uses it now. He says he felt relief from itching “two hours after taking the first injection.”
Emma Guttman-Yassky, MD, Professor of Dermatology, and Medicine (Clinical Immunology), at the Icahn School of Medicine at Mount Sinai
At least 31 million Americans are affected by some form of eczema. The most common type is atopic dermatitis, caused by a combination of genetic, immune and environmental factors. Dupilumab, sold by Regeneron Pharmaceuticals as Dupixent, is an antibody that binds to a protein, IL-4 receptor alfa, inhibiting the inflammatory response that leads to eczema’s rashes and itching. Dr. Guttman-Yassky’s laboratory was the first to map immune pathways underlying eczema, including those now targeted by dupilumab and other drugs in clinical trials.
Her team is among those testing more new therapies, including a drug made by Pfizer Inc. that targets a different immune molecule, interleukin 22 or IL-22. Dr. Guttman’s research was the first to identify the lymphocytes that produce IL-22, and show their link to eczema. With funding from the National Institutes of Health, she designed a study that tested IL-22 antibody targeting in the clinic and in the lab—a treatment that is showing promising preliminary results.
“These are exciting times for patients with eczema, and for me specifically, as I am able to contribute to the scientific development for this disease and help millions of patients worldwide,” Dr. Guttman-Yassky says. “This is a dream come through for a physician-scientist.”
As for Mr. Jacobson, he says that his skin, which had been “100 percent” covered with a scaly, flaking rash, is now largely clear. “The drug works,” he says of dupilumab. “It gives you your life back.”
Dr. Guttman-Yassky has received research funding from Regeneron, and drug and research support from Pfizer, and is working with most companies developing treatments for atopic dermatitis/eczema.
Updated on Jun 30, 2022 | Patient Stories
When 32-year-old Julissa Marquez sustained 27 stab wounds to the head, face, and eyes in December 2013, she was told by the trauma specialist who saw her that she would never see again. But thanks to doctors at the New York Eye and Ear Infirmary of Mount Sinai, including Ronald Gentile, MD, FACS, FASRS, Professor of Ophthalmology at the Icahn School of Medicine at Mount Sinai and Chief of Ocular Trauma Service, she was able to see her son graduate from high school.
Read more about her case in a posting by the American Academy of Ophthalmology
Read from the New York Eye and Ear Infirmary of Mount Sinai
