Patient Stories | Mount Sinai Today

Annual Dubin Breast Center Event Spotlights an Inspiring Patient Story

Jul 6, 2022 | Featured, Patient Stories

Eva Andersson-Dubin, MD, at podium, with panelist (left to right), David Anderson, MD, FACs, Anna Barbieri, MD, Jeffery Meckanick, MD, Cardinale Smith, MD, PhD, and Joseph Sparano , MD, FACP.

The annual Dubin Breast Center Fact vs. Fiction Luncheon and Symposium is a unique event that provides a forum for Mount Sinai leaders to share key insights about all aspects of breast cancer and healthy living, and to answer questions about emerging trends and the future of women’s health.

More than 130 people attended the event, which was held Wednesday, June 1 at The Harmonie Club in New York City.

The panel discussion was moderated by Elisa Port, MD, FACS, and featured a panel of experts, including David Anderson, MD, FACS; Anna Barbieri, MD; Jeffrey Mechanick, MD; Cardinale Smith, MD, PhD; and Joseph Sparano, MD, FACP. Watch the video here.

In opening remarks, Eva Andersson-Dubin, MD, Trustee of the Mount Sinai Health System and Founder of the Dubin Breast Center, noted how the Center continues to grow.

“Today we see an average of 180 to 200 patients a day, and since the day we opened we have seen 380,000 patients,” she said. “I am so thankful to everyone who works at the Center.”

One patient, Julie McAllister, shared her inspiring story. She was diagnosed with triple-negative breast cancer six years ago when she was 36 years old.

Julie McAllister tells her story of how the Dubin Breast Center helped her overcome triple negative breast cancer.

“I was in complete shock. I was young, very healthy, active a mother of two children–my youngest was just six months at the time,” she said. “There wasn’t any history of breast cancer in my family. Breast cancer wasn’t even a remote part of my reality. I truly didn’t know if and how I was going to survive. I kept thinking about my kids and how much of their life I was going to be around for, not to mention my husband and I wanted more children.“

Immediately after her initial diagnosis, Shari Brasner, MD, her OBGYN doctor, arranged for additional care. Eventually Ms. McAllister chose Mount Sinai for her treatment and surgery, and she was introduced to Hanna Irie, MD, PhD, who would become her oncologist.

“Dr. Irie was the best and felt like my lifeline during my treatment,” she said. “She was straightforward, incredibly smart, kind, and never made me feel like any of my questions and or fears were silly or unwarranted.” The doctor also helped her find a clinical trial to participate in once she completed her standard treatment.

Ms. McAllister would undergo a number of surgeries, five months of chemotherapy, six weeks of radiation, and then years of ongoing surveillance.

“Throughout all that time, I always felt like I was in the best hands and had the best doctors and nurses looking after me and never felt like a generic cancer patient or a statistic,” she said. “The nurses and staff were extremely warm and knowledgeable. The treatment rooms were comfortable, and I never felt alone.”

She added, “Cancer crushes you physically and mentally. It changes you, puts a fear in you that you never knew existed, and alters the way you think and worry for the rest of your life. But knowing that there are places like the Dubin Breast Center, that there are doctors like the ones I was fortunate enough to call mine, who can and will help treat and cure your cancer, is incredible. I am forever grateful for the treatment and care that I received.”

As a result, she was able to have another child, who was born just four months before the event at The Mount Sinai Hospital, two floors above the Dubin Breast Center.

The Dubin Breast Center at The Tisch Cancer Institute of the Icahn School of Medicine at Mount Sinai was created in 2011 to provide integrated care and services for every phase of breast health and care, including prevention, diagnosis, treatment, and survivorship. Clinicians and staff treat each person individually and holistically, with the goal of alleviating anxiety, enriching lives, and supporting emotional and physical well-being. The team works to advance the standard of care with innovative and emerging treatment, while researching life-saving options for the future.

Learn more about the Dubin Breast Center at Mount Sinai

After Her New Daughter Spends Two Months in the ICU, Mom Thanks the Compassionate and Caring Team at Mount Sinai West

May 14, 2021 | Featured, Patient Stories, Stories of Excellence

Allyson Bragg with her daughter, Aayla, who was in the Neonatal Intensive Care Unit at Mount Sinai West for more than two months.

Allyson Bragg lives in Edison, New Jersey, a 45-minute drive from Mount Sinai West under the best of conditions. But after meeting Robin Brown, MD, an obstetrician and gynecologist at Mount Sinai West, she had no hesitation in driving to New York City so that Dr. Brown could oversee her pregnancy.

Allyson needed someone special. She had suffered numerous miscarriages, and was referred to Dr. Brown by Martin Keltz, MD, a reproductive endocrinologist, who said Dr. Brown was an expert in high-risk pregnancies. “He was so right. She is incredible; I love her.”

Although Allyson’s pregnancy was uneventful, her daughter Aayla was born prematurely at 28 weeks. Weighing 1 pound and 4 ounces, Aayla was in the Neonatal Intensive Care Unit at Mount Sinai West for more than two months.

Allyson was determined to be with her daughter every day, but she found the commute and expenses of gas and tolls challenging. That all changed when Allie Rubin, LCSW, secured a room for Allyson at the Ronald Mc Donald House located in Manhattan’s Upper East Side. Allyson stayed there for 55 days, allowing her to have unlimited time with Aayla, worry free. “I am so grateful to Allie. Despite the circumstances, it was a wonderful experience,” she says.

Allyson is also appreciative of the entire nursing staff for their care. She has special praise for Glen Marie Bona Greszta, RN. “Glenn was amazing.” She was the first one on Aayla’s care in the NICU after she was born. Glen shared knowledge about premature babies and, by going above and beyond, assured Allyson that Aayla was in good hands.

“I was thrilled that Glen was the nurse who put Aayla in her car seat when she was able to leave the NICU, so she was the first and last person to care for my rainbow baby,” she says. “Nurse Glen sets the standard for nursing care! I’m also grateful for nurses Rose Husbands, RN, and Yolanda Dela Cruz, RN; they treated my daughter like she was their own.”

Athlete Finds a Team to Help Her Beat Multiple Sclerosis

May 4, 2021 | Featured, Patient Stories

“Ten years ago I thought my life was over. I did not think I could find the right partner or even have children. Being a part of the Corinne Goldsmith Dickinson Center for Multiple Sclerosis at Mount Sinai has helped me and my family so much.” — Jessica March

In 2009, when Jessica March was 29 years old, she began experiencing tingling in her toes and blurry vision. She was an athlete, and thought she was training too much for a 100-mile bike ride.

“You find all these excuses,” she said. “I remember waking up one morning, I opened my eyes, and I was completely paralyzed.” Mrs. March was terrified. “I felt like my body was in a straitjacket,” she said. She panicked and was screaming while pulling herself along the ground. “I didn’t know what was wrong with me, I was crying for days,” she said.

The first doctor she saw was a general neurologist who told her she had fibromyalgia. However, when she got her test results from the hospital, she started doing her own research and suspected multiple sclerosis (MS), a condition she had never heard of prior.

Jessica found a specialist for multiple sclerosis who started treating her for MS. This specialist referred her to Stephen Krieger, MD, Professor of Neurology, at the Corinne Goldsmith Dickinson Center for Multiple Sclerosis at Mount Sinai. “It’s been over 10 years, and I have never looked back,” she said.

Her diagnosis and treatment started with an MRI and medications. But with Dr. Krieger and the Corinne Goldsmith Dickinson Center, her treatment also emphasized the overall wellness of her life and how to thrive while living with this condition.

“He introduced me to the MS support group, and I was exposed to studies and data showing that people with MS can thrive,” Mrs. March said. In addition to her medications, her treatment includes nutrition, exercise, stress management, and mental health.

“Working with this team, I feel more confident talking to others and helping them,” she said. “I started in this dark place. Ten years ago I thought my life was over. I did not think I could find the right partner or even have children. Being a part of the MS Center has helped me and my family so much.” She is married and has two children.

Why should patients with multiple sclerosis choose Mount Sinai? “This faculty is the best in the world for researching and treating MS,” said Mrs. March, who credits Dr. Krieger, clinical neuropsychologist James Sumowski, PhD, and Ilana Katz-Sand, MD, along with the nurses and fellows, and the entire office staff at the Corinne Goldsmith Dickinson Center for Multiple Sclerosis at Mount Sinai.

“Their life mission is to support patients and caregivers,” she says. “It’s not just about a prescription on a prescription pad, it’s about your whole life. This group really cares.”

Saving Baby Nathaniel: As the Nation Went Into Lockdown Mount Sinai’s Liver Transplant Team Went Into Overdrive

Updated on Jun 30, 2022 | Featured, Patient Stories, Pediatric Care, Transplant

Image of jaundiced 6-month-old Nathaniel in hospital prior to transplant

Prior to his transplant surgery, Nathaniel Capelo was severely jaundiced. He required continuous blood transfusions and his belly had to be drained of fluid every other day.

On March 18, 2020, the anguished parents of 6-month-old Nathaniel Capelo sat in his hospital room at The Mount Sinai Hospital facing the grim reality that he would die within days if he did not receive a new liver. One week earlier, the COVID-19 pandemic had begun to grip the nation and widespread lockdowns were taking place. But at 10:30 that night, the couple received a phone call from Mount Sinai’s transplant team that offered tiny Nathaniel a potential lifeline: the family of a shooting victim in his early 20s, who had just died in another state, were willing to donate his liver—epitomizing the “good news/bad news” world of organ transplants.

At the time, operating rooms throughout New York City were being converted into intensive care units to house severely ill patients with COVID-19 who were beginning to strain the city’s health care system, and many hospitals had started suspending their transplant procedures altogether. The hospital where the donor had died told Mount Sinai’s Recanati/Miller Transplantation Institute that its surgeon Chiara Rocha, MD, and her team would have to bring their own personal protective equipment to wear while extracting and retrieving the donated liver to bring back to New York. Charter airline companies were shutting down flights and Mount Sinai’s administrators worked their magic in securing a Learjet to fly Dr. Rocha and her team hundreds of miles to and from the donor hospital in the middle of the night.

“The stars lined up,” says Sander S. Florman, MD, Director of the Recanati/Miller Transplantation Institute. “This was as logistically complicated as anything we have ever done and in a child where everything was stacked against him.”

To this day, Nathaniel’s doctors do not know what caused his rapid liver failure. But now, the inquisitive 20-month-old toddler “is going to do great,” says Dr. Florman. Three-quarters of the liver he received was transplanted into an adult patient at Mount Sinai, who is also doing well.

Members of Mount Sinai’s Liver Transplant team include, from left: Antonios Arvelakis, MD, Associate Professor of Surgery; Marcelo E. Facciuto, MD; Sander S. Florman, MD; and Chiara Rocha, MD.

The liver is the only organ in the body that can regenerate and grow. “But what most people don’t know is that if the liver is too big for the body it can shrink down,” says Dr. Florman. This is significant because at the time of his transplant surgery Nathaniel weighed only 11 pounds, representing “the extreme technical complexity” of what was possible, he adds.

Most children requiring a transplant would receive 20 percent of an adult liver—a size much too large for Nathaniel. Before the transplant could take place, Marcelo E. Facciuto, MD, Professor of Surgery at the Icahn School of Medicine at Mount Sinai, had to cut the donor liver down to the “smallest anatomic segment” possible, says Dr. Florman. But even that was too big. Following the seven-hour surgery led by Dr. Florman, the team left Nathaniel’s abdomen open for four days in order to shrink the liver to a size that was able to fit inside his tiny body.

After conducting more than 4,500 transplants during its 32-year history, Mount Sinai’s program has encountered a challenging surgery like Nathaniel’s only a dozen or so times, says Dr. Florman. “You’re talking about sewing an artery that’s just a couple of millimeters with sutures that are as fine as your hair. You are connecting the artery, the veins, and the bile duct, and it is all done with what we call a loop—glasses with a built-in microscope lens because it’s too small to complete with just your eyes.”

He adds, “Transplant is the epitome of a team sport and you can’t do this without having a tremendous team or without an institution that has unbelievable depth. Only a small number of transplant centers in the country would have been willing to take on a child this small. Even in the best of times this would have been a great triumph and a great case. This was even more so considering the time in which it happened.”

In fact, March 2020 marked the busiest month ever for Mount Sinai’s liver transplant program, which conducted 23 transplants, some of which were referrals from other programs that had just shut their doors.

Image of health 20-month-old Nathaniel among his toys

Today, at 20-months of age, Nathaniel is on track to hit all of his milestones. He is walking on his own, beginning to talk, and able to eat tiny pieces of solid food.

Nathaniel recently celebrated the one-year anniversary of his life-saving surgery, and his prognosis is good. Each month that goes by lowers the chances that his body will reject his transplanted liver. He has been weaned off of all but one of his 13 medications.

“Dr. Florman and his team were just amazing,” says Nathaniel’s father, Dennis Capelo. He and Nathaniel’s mother, Alexandra Ramos, remained at the hospital with their child during the five-month ordeal. Nothing could have prepared them for “the scariest time we ever had to deal with,” says Mr. Capelo, who has a 3-year-old son and 10-year-old daughter from a prior relationship.

He says, “We try to cherish every moment we have. We spend as much time as possible with all of the kids and each other and hope for the best.” He and Ms. Ramos have remained close to Nathaniel’s former Mount Sinai nurses and send them photos and videos to mark their toddler’s milestones, including his first steps. “They became like family to us,” Mr. Capelo says.

One of Nathaniel’s physicians, Ronen Arnon, MD, Professor of Pediatrics, Hepatology, and Liver Transplantation at the Icahn School of Medicine at Mount Sinai, remembers how “Nathaniel struggled to survive. The first months of his life were spent in a hospital bed rather than at home, and his first friends were his doctors and nurses. He suffered from eating and breathing difficulties and he could barely move due to his swollen abdomen.”

Another of his physicians was John Bucuvalas, MD, Chief of Pediatric Hepatology, Professor of Pediatrics, and Director of Solid Organ Transplant Outreach, Jack and Lucy Clark Department of Pediatrics, and Mount Sinai Kravis Children’s Hospital. “Today, Nathaniel is an active toddler and exploring his world. He won’t remember the transplant,” Dr. Bucuvalas says. “But for his parents, the Intensive Care Unit, P5 (Pediatric floor 5) teams, and the liver team, the series of events are etched in our memory and remind us of why we do what we do.”

Learn more about the Recanati/Miller Transplantation Institute at Mount Sinai

Cancer Survivor, 86, Recovers from COVID-19 with Help from Mount Sinai’s Unique Hospitalization at Home Program

Updated on Jun 30, 2022 | Featured, Patient Stories

When Paul Levine, 86, began feeling sick, with chills, fever, and weakness, he feared his cancer might have returned, so he called his oncologist. After learning Mr. Levine had lost his sense of smell, a symptom of COVID-19, the doctor immediately sent him to the hospital, where he was diagnosed with the disease.

In the hospital, Mr. Levine felt miserable. He was put on oxygen and given infusions of fluids. He had trouble sleeping and didn’t feel like eating. He missed his wife, Sondra, who called several times a day, and he missed her cooking.

After about a week at Mount Sinai Beth Israel, he was able to return home to his East Village apartment to continue his recovery, thanks to a unique Mount Sinai program that offers hospital care in home settings.

Since 2014, Mount Sinai has offered some patients arriving at the hospital the option of getting the care they need at home under its Hospitalization at Home program. The program provides twice daily visits from nurses, a special digital tablet to communicate with the hospital, and the ability to receive all needed tests and exams, including IV infusions, ultrasounds, and supplemental oxygen.

Shortly after patients with COVID-19 began arriving at hospitals, Mount Sinai developed a new program, called Completing Hospitalization at Home, that allowed appropriate COVID-19 patients like Mr. Levine to be discharged to home to complete their recovery, while receiving all of the care they would normally receive in the hospital.

“I believe that the hospital at home program gave me the best of both worlds. I had hospital care with the home cooking that was most important in recovering the weight I had lost, along with my wife’s care and company,” says Mr. Levine, who lost about 18 pounds.

Almost three months after his initial diagnosis, Mr. Levine, a diabetic who recovered from treatment for a blood disorder called chronic lymphocytic leukemia (CLL) more than a decade ago, was doing much better. He still felt some shortness of breath, even with minimal exertion. But he’s thankful to be at home and to finally get his appetite back, especially for his wife’s homemade mushroom and barley soup.

Linda V. DeCherrie, MD, the program’s clinical director and a Professor in the Department of Geriatrics and Palliative Medicine at the Icahn School of Medicine at Mount Sinai, said the program helps patients recover because they are more comfortable and find it easier to gradually return to normal activities, such as walking around and getting a cup of coffee. Studies show these patients have better outcomes.

“You are in your own bed, eating your own food, and enjoying the company of your loved ones,” said Dr. DeCherrie. “Being at home can help your recovery in many ways.”

First-Time Mother Receives Life-Saving Aortic Surgery

Updated on Jun 30, 2022 | Cardiology, Featured, Patient Stories

From left, Ismail El-Hamamsy, MD, PhD, Yulia Nurikyan, and Percy Boateng, MD.

A first-time mother received life-saving heart surgery at The Mount Sinai Hospital, thanks to her quick response to her symptoms and knowledge of her family’s health history, says a leader of her surgical team, Ismail El-Hamamsy, MD, PhD, Director of Aortic Surgery, Mount Sinai Health System, and first author of a recent paper on aortic dissection repair during the COVID-19 pandemic.

The patient, Yulia Nurikyan, was 38 weeks pregnant and had not been feeling well, with a backache that she thought was caused by her late-stage pregnancy. In mid-May, in the heat of the COVID-19 pandemic, she woke up at 5 am with a heavy feeling in her throat. She got out of bed for a glass of water, then fainted. Her husband, Antoan, quickly called 911, and an ambulance rushed her to Elmhurst Hospital in Queens.

Ms. Nurikyan told the medical team at Elmhurst that her father had died of an aortic dissection in his 40s, so they ordered a CT scan and other diagnostic tests, which showed that she had a bicuspid aortic valve. This was crucial information. About half of patients with this heart defect develop an aortic aneurysm, an enlargement of the vessel that can lead to aortic dissection. This is a tear in the inner layer of the aorta, the main blood vessel that brings oxygenated blood to the rest of the body. Some people with an aortic dissection feel no pain, but common symptoms are severe sudden pain in the upper back or chest, shortness of breath, and dizziness or fainting.

Ms. Nurikyan underwent an emergency C-section, delivering a baby girl, Livia. She held her daughter for a few minutes, then she was rushed to The Mount Sinai Hospital for emergency heart surgery, since the imaging tests suggested that her aorta was about to rupture, which could have proved fatal.

Yulia and Antoan Nurikyan with baby Livia.

“In cardiac surgery, this situation is at the top of the list of emergencies,” says Dr. El-Hamamsy, who treated Ms. Nurikyan as soon as she arrived. Dr. El-Hamamsy, senior faculty in Cardiovascular Surgery at the Icahn School of Medicine at Mount Sinai, is an expert in the repair of aortic dissection and recently published a study that found a significant decline in reported cases during the COVID-19 crisis.

In the study, published in May in the Journal of the American College of Cardiology, researchers compiled data on surgical repair of acute Type A aortic dissection in 11 New York City hospitals from January 1, 2018, to April 15, 2020, counting March 1, 2020, as the first day of the COVID-19 pandemic in the city. The study found that these surgical repairs fell 76 percent after the COVID-19 pandemic began—from 12.8 cases per month before the pandemic to 3 cases per month after the pandemic.

The investigators presented several potential reasons for the decline, suggesting, for example, that some aortic dissection patients did not call for help, fearing COVID-19 infection; or busy first responders were delayed in providing aid; or overburdened emergency departments may have missed or delayed diagnoses. The study said, “Although no causal relationship can be firmly established among the drop in type A aortic dissections, the COVID-19 outbreak in New York City, and the increase in at-home deaths since the last week of March 2020, this gives pause for thought.”

Ms. Nurikyan experienced a Type A aortic dissection. In a successful procedure, Dr. El Hamamsy repaired her bicuspid aortic valve, removing some of the injured blood vessel and replacing it with a synthetic graft, working with David H. Adams, MD, the Marie-Josée and Henry R. Kravis Professor and Chair of Cardiovascular Surgery at the Icahn School of Medicine at Mount Sinai, and the Cardiac Surgeon-in-Chief of the Mount Sinai Health System, and Percy Boateng, MD, Assistant Professor of Cardiovascular Surgery, Icahn School of Medicine at Mount Sinai.

Ms. Nurikyan’s baby, Livia, had remained at Elmhurst, placed in neonatal intensive care because of fluid in her lungs. Ms. Nurikyan and daughter spent a week at separate hospitals, and her husband could not visit either of them due to safety rules during the pandemic, though the hospitals kept them in touch through video calls. The family was happily reunited on May 23, when Ms. Nurikyan was picked up by her husband and they went together to get Livia. “My baby was the one who got me through it,” she said in an article on her care in the Daily News. She said she was grateful for her healthier heart and for the compassionate and expert care her new family received.

Ms. Nurikyan’s quick response to her symptoms was crucial, Dr. El-Hamamsy says, a point reinforced by the recent study. “It is critical, as we adjust to the pandemic, to balance the public health imperative of social distancing with the individual need to consult in the presence of sudden severe symptoms. Furthermore, additional resources, ranging from telemedicine to numbers of first responders, should be greatly increased,” the study concluded. “This serves as a word of caution for cities yet to experience a surge in COVID-19 cases, as well as for future similar events.”

Learn more about Mount Sinai Heart

« Older Entries

Next Entries »