The future of medicine, maintaining an edge in biomedical innovation, and the cost of health care in America were among the topics explored by Mount Sinai Health System leaders during the 2014 Aspen Ideas Festival, a yearly conclave that attracts several thousand policy makers, innovators, entrepreneurs, and executives who participate in thought-provoking discussions on health care and other major issues that impact America.
Faculty from Icahn School of Medicine at Mount Sinai also had significant roles in discussions about innovations in medical education, adolescent and geriatric health in America, advances in robotic surgery, and new minimally invasive procedures for joint replacement. The event was presented by the Aspen Institute, an educational and policy studies organization based in Washington, D.C., and The Atlantic magazine, and was held June 24 – July 3, on the Rocky Mountain campus of the Aspen Institute.
Panelists were asked to imagine America’s health care landscape a decade from now and beyond. “This is an unprecedented time in academic medicine as a revolution in biology is upon us, reminiscent of the breakthroughs in physics that occurred in the early 1900s,” said Kenneth L. Davis, MD, Chief Executive Officer and President of the Mount Sinai Health System, during one panel discussion on the “Future of Academic Medicine in the United States.” He added: “However, will we be able to fund research of devastating brain diseases, such as Alzheimer’s, which is nearing epidemic proportions? We need to create an ecosystem of innovation in order to find treatments for the world’s most devastating diseases. What we need are public and fiscal policies that increase the likelihood of development of therapeutics for these chronic and costly conditions.”
Taking a drug from conception to human trials is a costly endeavor estimated at $1 billion, explained 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, during a panel discussion titled “Are We Maintaining our Edge in Biotech Innovation?” Said Dr. Charney: “The challenge—even after advances in the human genome, and other discoveries, in cancer, for example—is to create more of a collaboration among the National Institutes of Health (NIH), basic scientists, and industry.”
Dr. Charney also pointed out that a decrease in NIH funding is making it more difficult for scientists to pursue their research. Overall success rate for grant applications at the NIH last year was 16.8 percent, he said, and the average age of scientists receiving their first independent grant from the NIH was 42. “We are losing a generation of outstanding young scientists because funding is not available to support their science,” he added. “This lost generation will negatively impact the future of biomedical research.”
Attendees included former U.S. Department of Health and Human Services Secretary Kathleen Sebelius. During a question-and-answer session, Dr. Davis wondered why the federal government subsidizes corn and so many products with high-fructose corn syrup, despite the administration’s concern with obesity. Secretary Sebelius answered, “It makes no sense. We also subsidize tobacco, by the way … but the likelihood of this Congress tackling the issue, I don’t think is very good. I think, so then you go back to the fallback position, which is educating consumers about what they’re eating and what it does to their bodies.”
Dr. Davis also had an opportunity to ask former First Lady, United States Senator for New York, and U.S. Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton about the Affordable Care Act. Ms. Rodham Clinton responded, “We should be mending it, not ending it.”
Throughout the festival, Mount Sinai faculty were on site to demonstrate the da Vinci® Surgical System used to perform minimally invasive surgery, as well as a new virtual-reality simulator that helps Mount Sinai neurosurgeons practice a procedure in advance of brain surgery.
For many visitors, a popular, and in some cases potentially life-saving activity of the festival, were the free skin-cancer screenings offered daily by six members of Mount Sinai’s Department of Dermatology.
The Mount Sinai team performed 713 screenings during the duration of the festival. Significantly, the physicians identified nine possible melanomas, 190 precancerous lesions, 80 atypical moles, and 89 potential nonmelanoma skin cancers—potential diagnoses that will need to be confirmed with additional testing.
For more information, visit www.mountsinai.org/aspen