March is Social Work Month, and our social workers are some of the hardest working people I know.
MSBI has over 80 social workers that form a tight-knit system throughout our inpatient units, ambulatory practices, opioid treatment programs, cancer centers, and other practice environments.
We know our social workers are counselors and advocates for our patients who are most in need. They also serve as compassionate investigators and connectors and technical experts. These are just a few of the many ways they go above and beyond for their patients.
Recently, our Petrie social workers came across a mentally ill woman who couldn’t remember her own name. She was truly lost. They convinced her to allow her picture to be taken and then shared the picture with their community networks, connected the patient with her former caseworker, and got her home. In other instances, our social workers have used social media, blogs, and other online resources to connect patients with their loved ones after they had been staying in the hospital alone.
Our outpatient social workers also go above and beyond. Recently, a pregnant patient came in to see her obstetrician and was devastated that a flood had ruined many items including a baby swing she purchased to prepare for her newborn. The OB social worker connected her with a community-based program that helps provide families with needed resources, and the patient recovered $1200 worth of provisions to replace those that were ruined by the flood.
Next week, we will gather our incredible social workers for a lunch to celebrate and honor their amazing contributions our MSBI community. Thank you to all of our social workers this month, and always.
By Dr. Jeremy Boal, President of Mount Sinai Downtown
I don’t have to tell you that working our way through the MSBI transformation is very complicated and dynamic. You are living it every day. We’ve learned that this much change, on top of an already demanding healthcare environment, requires a much more aggressive approach to identifying and solving the problems that get in the way of you and your colleagues doing your best work. In light of this, over the past year, we’ve taken a more proactive approach to solving problems that I want to tell you about.
Each morning at 9:00 am, my immediate team and I meet as a group to work on and solve current and ongoing issues that have been brought to our attention one way or another. We meet in the same room every day where we have a giant tracking board that we use to make sure that no issue, regardless of how big or how small, is ignored or forgotten. Here are some examples of things we’ve been working on recently…
Transport team staffing enhancements
Implementation of the hospital-wide security assessment recommendations
Nor-Easter preparations
A surgeon’s request for additional mid-level provider support in his practice
A staff member report of broken equipment on a behavioral health unit
Difficulty in obtaining Pyxis access for nurses floating to units
Resident difficult in accessing an elevator during a rapid response event
A request for a staff lounge for our CPEP unit
You get the idea. No issue is too small for us to take seriously. Everything that is reported to us matters. We keep a daily, weekly, and monthly grid of these topics – some things we can solve instantly and others are more complicated and take time to resolve. But we never give up.
Then, every day at 9:30 am, we join another 30 or so directors, managers, and department leads for our safety huddle. Our chief medical officer, Dr. Barbara Barnett, asks every hospital and ambulatory department to report on patient, staff, safety, and operational issues from the last 24 hours and for the next 24 hours. This meeting is all about connecting the right people and tackling daily challenges as quickly and collaboratively as possible. I’m often amazed at how rapidly our security, engineering, social work, environmental services, hospitalists, and so many other teams come to the rescue after this 9:30 am huddle. We truly have remarkable people taking care of us and our patients.
We want everyone in the organization to feel safe and comfortable bringing problems and ideas forward. In particular, we do not stand on ceremony with regard to traditional chains of command. We emphatically do not believe that rigid adherence to the traditional hierarchy (staff member to manager to director to vice president etc.) is healthy or required when things are as dynamic as they are here. The main thing is for you to feel comfortable bringing your problems and solutions to anyone you think will get the issue addressed. Many of our wonderful managers and supervisors can help you with your concerns. But, there is no wrong way to escalate any issue you are having. As we grow and change together, I hope you will reach out and let me know how we can help. You can e-mail me at any time. I would be so grateful to hear from you. Jeremy.Boal@mssm.edu.
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.”
“Botox is a brand name of which there are several different companies. The actual chemical is Botulinum toxin A. This is derived from Clostridium bacteria, so it is a toxin, but it’s been repurposed so that it doesn’t actually cause harm to your skin or to your body. What it does is it works at your neuromuscular synapse to prevent the release of acetylcholine, which is a neurotransmitter that helps your muscles contract, so when you administer Botox that acetylcholine transmission is halted and you can’t contract those muscles to make wrinkles anymore. The right practitioner will not over do the Botox – that’s really important to do it with a gentle hand, to do it in the right places so that you avoid looking frozen. Sometimes people will ask well is this actually safe? Botox Cosmetic was approved for cosmetic use in 2012 and, so in all of this time, we have really excellent safety data, particularly for the amounts that are used in dermatology, it’s been shown to be safe. The only real side effects that you might experience are some injection site reactions, a little bit of bruising maybe, some temporary swelling, but otherwise it’s really well-tolerated. One thing to know about it is that it does last usually about three to four months, so it does require repeated office visits. The plus side of that though is if you’re not happy with Botox and it’s not for you, it’s not there forever.”
Make an appointment with Reena Rupani, MD
Reena Rupani, MD, is a board certified dermatologist at Mount Sinai Doctors, seeing patients Monday-Thursday. Trained in Connecticut, Rhode Island, and Arizona, she is certified by the American Board of Dermatology. After receiving her undergraduate degree from Harvard University, she was awarded her medical degree from Yale University’s School of Medicine. She completed her residency in Dermatology at Rhode Island Hospital and her fellowship at Arizona Center for Integrative Medicine, where she studied under Andrew Weil, MD. She has written several publications, including two textbooks, on dermatology and has contributed to multiple peer-reviewed articles. She speaks regularly at the American Academy of Dermatology and has an extensive background in medical education. She has a particular interest in both adult and pediatric medical and surgical dermatology, as well as cosmetic care, including Botox, chemical peels, injectable fillers, and laser therapies.
When Jacquitta was diagnosed with uterine cancer, she turned to Woman to Woman, a program of The Mount Sinai Hospital, Division of Gynecologic Oncology and Social Work Services. Since its founding in 2003, the program has provided emotional support to more than 1,000 women undergoing treatment for gynecologic cancer. She met a mentor, Myrtice, a cancer survivor. Here is their story:
Jacquitta had surgery for a hysterectomy. When she woke up, the doctors told her they found cancer. “They said it was early stage, we feel that we got it all. But we need you to do six rounds of chemo. So I was devastated, to say the least,” she said.
The Woman to Woman program assigned her a mentor, Myrtice, a uterine and pancreatic cancer survivor who knew what to expect. “The chemo, of course, everybody knows it beats the hell out of you. It beat me up really bad,” she said. “But I had my sister and my daughters right there.”
When Jacquitta, left, was diagnosed with uterine cancer, she turned to the Woman to Woman program for support and got a mentor, Myrtice
Shortly afterwards, the two spoke on the phone. Myrtice could tell Jacquitta was frightened. Jacquitta was also puzzled. How did this happen to me? she asked.
When she learned that Myrtice would accompany her to her first chemotherapy appointment, she was amazed. “I said, for real? You don’t even know me. Are you sure? And she said, ‘Yes, that’s what we do. I’m going to be at all of them.’”
Several days later, when the two women met, there was an instant connection.
“I hugged her, because it was just such a connection right there,” Myrtice said. “And in my heart and soul I looked at her and I said, and I believed when I said it, ‘You’re going to beat this. And I am going to walk every step with you.’ And I meant that.”
It was empowering for Myrtice as well. “It’s important to me to help every woman that I can because this thing that they call cancer, we can’t let this take us down.”
Jacquitta was reassured. “She just talked to me and said everything’s going to be all right and asked if I needed anything. It was just incredible for someone who didn’t know you to just show up,” she said. “I felt that because she had beat it, and she was cancer-free, that she had two kinds of cancers, I thought, Wow, I can do this.”
After weeks of treatment, Jacquitta was cancer-free and her friendship with Myrtice had grown even stronger.
“We’ve become the best of friends. We’re like family,” Jacquitta said. “I call on her, and I ask her about life issues, about my job, about relationships. And she’s there for me.”
Healthy eating throughout the winter months can be challenging. After an indulgent holiday season filled with rich foods, returning to healthy eating may be difficult. And with colder, shorter days, the urge to roll up on your couch, order in your favorite comfort foods, and binge-watch a new TV show may outweigh hitting the gym. It is no surprise that these habits can result in unwanted weight gain, which we then resolve to lose come swimsuit season. (more…)
Healthy eating throughout the winter months can be challenging. After an indulgent holiday season filled with rich foods, returning to healthy eating may be difficult. And with colder, shorter days, the urge to roll up on your couch, order in your favorite comfort foods, and binge-watch a new TV show may outweigh hitting the gym. It is no surprise that these habits can result in unwanted weight gain, which we then resolve to lose come swimsuit season.