Updated on Jun 30, 2022 | Your Health
In just the past few years, advances in treatment for Hepatitis C have been nothing short of astounding, notes Douglas T. Dieterich, MD, Director, Institute of Liver Medicine, Professor of Medicine, Division of Liver Disease, Icahn School of Medicine at Mount Sinai. Unfortunately, most people with the potentially deadly liver disease do not know they are infected, living for decades with this silent killer until it is too late to prevent serious liver damage.
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Updated on Jun 30, 2022 | Your Health
Sleep apnea is estimated to affect more than 20 million Americans, though doctors say that 80 percent of those cases remain undiagnosed. The disorder is so common that just about everyone has some level of risk, but people who are overweight or who experience daytime sleepiness are considered at high risk, according to Omar Burschtin, MD, Associate Professor of Medicine, Pulmonary, Critical Care and Sleep Medicine at The Mount Sinai Hospital.
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Updated on Jun 30, 2022 | Your Health
Though media attention has diminished, Zika still poses a threat to many countries, including the United States, according to Jean K. Lim, PhD, Assistant Professor of Microbiology at the Icahn School of Medicine at Mount Sinai.
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Updated on Jun 30, 2022 | Your Health
For kids playing outside this summer, safety is key to a healthy, fun experience. Here are some tips from two Mount Sinai Health System experts who work with the United States Tennis Association: James Gladstone, MD, Co-chief of the Sports Medicine Service and Associate Professor of Orthopedic Surgery, and Melissa Leber, MD, Assistant Professor of Sports Medicine and Emergency Medicine, and Director of Emergency Department Sports Medicine at Mount Sinai St. Luke’s and Mount Sinai West.
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Updated on Jun 30, 2022 | Featured, Your Health
From left: David L. Reich, MD, President and Chief Operating Officer, The Mount Sinai Hospital; 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; Kenneth L. Davis, MD; Madeline Bell, President and Chief Executive Officer, Children’s Hospital of Philadelphia; and Lisa M. Satlin, MD, Herbert H. Lehman Professor and Chair, Jack and Lucy Clark Department of Pediatrics, Icahn School of Medicine at Mount Sinai.
The Mount Sinai Health System and Children’s Hospital of Philadelphia (CHOP) launched the next phase of their 18-month-old alliance on Wednesday, May 31, as they officially opened their Fetal Medicine Program and announced an affiliation of the Mount Sinai Children’s Heart Center with the Cardiac Center at CHOP. The celebration included a ribbon-cutting ceremony on the third floor of the Annenberg Building—the location of the new Fetal Medicine Suite—that was attended by several dozen leaders and staff from both institutions.
The Mount Sinai and CHOP alliance began in the fall of 2015 and includes three areas: fetal medicine, pediatric cardiac care, and pediatric oncology. In all three areas, the collaboration intends to give patients and their families access to the most advanced diagnostics and treatments by Mount Sinai and CHOP specialists at several Mount Sinai locations.
“We are combining our strengths to give children in the New York metropolitan area access to an unprecedented scope of pediatric services,” Kenneth L. Davis, MD, President and Chief Executive Officer, Mount Sinai Health System, told the guests.
“CHOP is pleased to mark this milestone in the relationship between two health care institutions that are totally dedicated to caring for the health of children and their families,” Madeline Bell, President and Chief Executive Officer of Children’s Hospital of Philadelphia, said. “The alliance continues to evolve and reflects both a shared vision to better serve families in the New York region and a mutual professional respect and admiration between our organizations.”
The Fetal Medicine Program is unique for New York: it allows expectant parents facing a high-risk pregnancy to have a comprehensive fetal diagnosis conducted and then reviewed in full detail with a team of specialists, all in a single day. “By the end of the day, parents will have their questions answered, understand the treatment options, and be equipped to make the best decisions for their families,” said Dr. Davis.
From left: Khanh Nguyen, MD, Professor of Cardiovascular Surgery, and Pediatrics, Icahn School of Medicine at Mount Sinai, and Chief, Pediatric Cardiothoracic Surgery, The Mount Sinai Hospital; Joanne Stone, MD, MS; and Peter Pastuszko, MD.
Ultrasound, echocardiography, fetal magnetic resonance imaging, and all diagnostic testing will be performed at The Mount Sinai Hospital. Images will be read by specialists in fetal radiology at CHOP and Mount Sinai in coordination with Mount Sinai maternal-fetal medicine specialists using telemedicine video links. “In effect, we are building a dream team of fetal medicine,” said Joanne Stone, MD, MS, Director, Division of Maternal-Fetal Medicine, Mount Sinai Health System, and Professor, Obstetrics, Gynecology and Reproductive Science, Icahn School of Medicine at Mount Sinai.
The new pediatric cardiac care alliance includes the Fetal Heart Program, which aims to diagnose congenital heart disease as early as 12-14 weeks gestation using fetal echocardiography. Specialists at Mount Sinai and CHOP would then jointly develop an optimal plan for care. Additionally, the Children’s Heart Center at The Mount Sinai Hospital, overseen by the divisions of Pediatric Cardiology and Cardiac Surgery, and offering a continuum of care from fetal to adult life, will now have access to the expertise of CHOP’s Cardiac Center in areas such as pediatric cardiac intensive care and pediatric cardiothoracic surgery. The Mount Sinai and CHOP teams are able to provide joint expertise at all points of treatment through direct consultation and use of telehealth technology.
“Every day, we are confronted with new babies who depend upon us for life,” said Peter Pastuszko, MD, Chief, Pediatric Cardiac Surgery and Director of Pediatric Cardiovascular Services, Mount Sinai Health System, and Professor, Cardiovascular Surgery, Icahn School of Medicine at Mount Sinai. “Today, we are well equipped to handle a congenital heart defect of any complexity.”
The event featured a videoconference with N. Scott Adzick, MD, Surgeon-in-Chief and Director of the Center for Fetal Diagnosis and Treatment, Children’s Hospital of Philadelphia (CHOP), and Professor of Surgery, University of Pennsylvania School of Medicine, and the CHOP team.
Updated on Jun 30, 2022 | Featured, Psychiatry, Research, Your Health
The Icahn School of Medicine at Mount Sinai recently opened a new Addiction Institute that will address one of the nation’s greatest health concerns by exploring effective treatments for patients with substance abuse problems.
“Bringing science to bear on the development of new therapies has reached the top of the national agenda, and that is where Mount Sinai excels,” says Yasmin Hurd, PhD, the Ward-Coleman Chair in Translational Neuroscience and Director of the Addiction Institute at Mount Sinai.
The Institute will manage therapies for all types of substance abuse. By removing the traditional silos that separate research and clinical care, and unifying all areas of addiction under one umbrella, Dr. Hurd says the Institute is “well positioned to meet the challenges of New York City and the nation.” The Institute will leverage Mount Sinai’s considerable body of research and clinical expertise in neuroscience and behavioral health in order to move the field forward.
According to the 2016 U.S. Surgeon General’s Report on Alcohol, Drugs, and Health, more than 20 million Americans have substance abuse disorders and 12.5 million reported misusing prescription painkillers. Despite decades of expense and effort focused on a criminal justice-based model for addressing substance-related problems, the report acknowledged that addiction remains a public health crisis with economic consequences in crime, health, and lost productivity totaling more than $400 billion annually. Dr. Hurd says the Institute’s collaboration with Mount Sinai’s other specialties such as precision medicine, population health, infectious disease, epidemiology, and genomics will help advance treatments and novel discoveries.
“The Institute’s modernized structure across a large, integrated health system will enable us to approach addiction in a cohesive way,” says Dr. Hurd. “In addition to prioritizing our research based on clinical needs, we want to understand the populations at risk and their patterns of behavior. Addiction is complex and one group cannot do it alone.”
Yasmin Hurd, PhD
An important aspect of the Institute’s work will be dispelling the stigma associated with addiction through greater understanding of the biological and behavioral complexities of substance use disorders. Another goal will be encouraging young clinicians to enter residencies and fellowships in the fields of addiction psychiatry and addiction medicine.
“We want to train the best and the brightest through enhanced clinical and research rigor to elevate the field,” says Dr. Hurd. “Clinical treatments for some addictions have not advanced in 50 years. This and other stigmas can deter young physicians from going into this field. Unless we improve the clinical toolkit available for clinicians we will not be able to change the trajectory of care.”
Decades of scientific studies have established that chronic substance misuse leads to profound disruptions of brain circuits involved in pleasure, reward, habit formation, stress, and decision-making. Repeated drug use alters the expression of genes to ultimately increase or decrease their production of proteins, leading to long-term changes in cellular function and even reshaping of the physical structure of neurons.
“Drugs can change the morphology of cells and induce a cascade of adverse events in the brain,” says Dr. Hurd. The Institute plans to move forward with multiple clinical trials that seek to reverse those disruptions. “Most addicts do not want to be addicted,” she adds. “Addiction can be treated. We need medical therapies that partner with behavioral therapies, and we need to be diverse in our treatment portfolio.”
