20-Minute Health Talk

Treating trans youth: Separating fact from fiction

In recent months, more states have debated and even passed legislation that limits how health care is delivered to transgender individuals. In the last year alone, more than 20 such bills have been enacted nationwide. In Part 1 of this two-part episode (recorded May 16, 2022), we take a closer look at the impact these laws are having on transgender care with a panel of experts at the local, state and federal level. In part 2 (posting June 28) our experts discuss PrEP injectables, the newest treatment and prevention modality for HIV.

Joining us for this panel discussion are: 

• David Rosenthal, DO, PhD, medical director for Northwell’s Center for Transgender Care; as well as medical director for the Center for Young Adult, Adolescent and Pediatric HIV. 
• Demetre Daskalakis, MD, director of the Division of HIV/AIDS Prevention (DHAP) for the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC)
• Charles Gonzalez, MD, medical director for the New York State Department of Health's AIDS Institute

More from the experts

Dr. Rosenthal shares his perspective as a physician treating transgender individuals on care being politicized and how health care can help. 

 

Nerve blocks: Fighting opioid addiction with safer pain management

The overuse of opioids in health care over the last two decades has had devastating effects. The development of the ultrasound-guided nerve block has revolutionized the field of anesthesia and is part of an important and necessary shift in the conversation about how we manage pain. Not only championing its use in the surgical setting, Joseph Marino, MD, Northwell’s senior vice president for anesthesia, is now expanding its use to emergency departments in Staten Island, Westchester and Long Island.

The team responsible for implementing this approach at Staten Island University Hospital share their experiences using the femoral nerve block for certain painful ailments, like hip fractures. They include: 

• Joshua Greenstein, MD, Assistant Medical Director, Department of Emergency Medicine
• Maria Tama, MD, co-director, division of emergency ultrasound in the hospital’s Department of Emergency Medicine
• Simone Rudnin, DO, co-director, division of emergency ultrasound, Department of Emergency Medicine and director, emergency medicine clerkship

Telemedicine in Ukraine: A system to support frontline healthcare workers

On this episode of the podcast, we speak with two Northwell leaders who have led the effort to create and deploy a 24/7 consultation and support service to Ukraine. This real-time, doctor-to-doctor platform is now offering health care workers a vital resource, particularly for those displaced by the ongoing hostilities in the country. Eric Cioe-Pena, MD, director of Northwell's Center for Global Health, and Jonathan Berkowitz, MD, medical director for the Center for Emergency Medicine, discuss:

• Northwell's Ukraine Relief Fund
• The benefits of telemedicine in a conflict
• Adapting existing infrastructure for Ukraine
• Reactions from doctors in Ukraine and Northwell
• How technology is driving Global Health forward

Support the Center for Global Health's Ukraine Relief Fund

More from the experts

Read more about standing up a telemedicine system in Ukraine from Dr. Cioe-Pena and Dr. Berkowitz.

Listen to Dr. Berkowitz talk more about the overnight telemedicine platform, ER on Demand, which he helped to launch in summer 2021. 

Watch episodes of this health podcast on YouTube.

 

CCTA: Diagnosing chest pain just got a lot easier

For the millions of US patients who go to an ER or medical office with chest pain every year, doctors have several options for screening. New national guidelines recommend a quick and non-invasive heart scan known as CCTA for stable chest pain. Our guests today are leading experts in the field of advanced cardiac imaging and discuss the history and many applications of this technology, which produces a 3D image of the heart and can be used to rule out several potentially deadly conditions. The updated guidelines come from the American College of Cardiology (ACC), American Heart Association (AHA), and other groups.

Podcast transcript.

Meet the experts

Amar Shah, MD, is Northwell's chief of cardiac imaging

Michael Poon, MD is director of advanced cardiac imaging, for Northwell's Western Region.

More Insights

• Preventive care: Life-saving tests you should schedule now.
• Have pain under the right rib cage? An emergency medicine physician breaks down the most common causes, and what to do for each.
• Common causes of pain under the left rib cage.
• Prostate screening: A safer, faster, more accurate pathway

Jaw-in-a-Day

Jaw-in-a-Day accomplishes in one surgery and one day what used to take three surgeries or more. Prior to this revolutionary procedure, the process to get dental implants could take months, or even years, forcing patients to live without teeth. Using virtual surgical planning, a team of doctors can not only pre-fabricate teeth to implant on the day of surgery, they can improve the accuracy and efficiency of this difficult process. On this episode of 20-Minute Health Talk, we speak with the pioneers of Jaw-in-a-Day:

• David Hirsch, MD, DDS, FACS, senior vice president of the dental medicine service line for Northwell Health, and chair of the newly established Department of Oral and Maxillofacial Surgery at Lenox Hill Hospital.
• Lawrence Brecht, DDS, a specialist in maxillofacial prosthetics

They discuss how this new approach to jaw surgery came to be, evolving the technology behind it over that last 10 years, and expanding access.

Outsmarting endometriosis: How breakthrough research is leading the way

Diagnosing a disease usually requires a test or blood sample. But for women with endometriosis, diagnosis requires an invasive surgery. For April Summerford, a 36-year-old from Fresno California, that surgery actually worsened her disease. Wanting to do her part, she joined the ROSE study, which stands for Research OutSmarts Endometriosis. Led by Christine Metz, PhD, and Peter Gregersen, MD, the ROSE research team has spent the last seven years trying to find better treatments and less invasive ways to detect endometriosis.

 

Dr. Metz and Dr. Gregersen join April to discuss her decade-long battle, the ROSE study's innovative approaches to studying endometriosis, the medical gaslighting patients often face, and the problem of gender bias in research funding.

 

Podcast transcript

 

Watch episodes of this health podcast on YouTube. 

 

Meet our guests

• Dr. Christine Metz is co-director of the study and a professor in the Institute of Molecular Medicine at the Feinstein Institutes for Medical Research.
• Dr. Peter Gregersen is also co-director of the ROSE study, and director of the Feinstein’s Robert S. Boas Center for Genomics and Human Genetics.
• April Summerford, is an endometriosis patient and ROSE study participant, who also runs the popular support group, Beyond Endo; AND hosts the FemFuture podcast, which covers women’s health.

What does a lung transplant sound like?

There are only 73 lung transplant centers in the United States and, until recently, none on Long Island. As a result, many have fought an uphill battle waiting for transplant, including Lindsay Salguero-Lopez, 40. In late January, end-stage heart and lung failure left her near death, with transplant as the only treatment that could save her life. Fortunately, Northwell had just launched its program days prior. Even more fortunate, donor organs became available just three days later and in the early morning hours of February 5, Lindsay became the first person to receive a lung transplant on Long Island.

Register to be an organ donor.

On this special episode of 20-Minute Health Talk, listen to the delicate and life-giving sounds of Lindsay's landmark surgery, and hear from the medical team who saved her life. They include:

• Aldo Iacono, MD, medical director of advanced lung failure and lung transplantation
• Zachary Kon, MD, Northwell’s surgical director of advanced heart failure and cardiac transplantation, as well as advanced lung failure and lung transplantation
• and Paul Trevlos, AVP of cardiothoracic surgery and the administrative lead for Northwell's lung transplant program.

Chapters:

• 00:44 - Lindsay in crisis 
• 01:06 - Waiting for transplant
• 02:07 - Preparing for surgery
• 03:26 - Moving to the OR
• 03:39 - Donor organs arrive
• 05:24 - Implantation time
• 06:05 - A shock to the heart
• 06:43 - Long Island's first lung transplant
• 07:34 - An urgent need for lung transplant
• 08:38 - Panel discussion intro
• 09:21 - Returning to life after transplant
• 10:08 - Post-operative care
• 11:31 - Building a world-class program
• 12:55 - History of lung transplant (and heart-lung)
• 14:26 - Recovery from lung transplant
• 16:39 - Ways lung transplant programs start
• 17:25 - Rounding out transplant services
• 19:35 - Innovation in lung transplant
• 21:12 - Novel immunosuppression

When hospitals close: How to address ’care deserts’

Millions of Americans live 30 miles or more from the nearest hospital. Not just an inconvenience, this access issue known as “care deserts” affects a shocking 80 percent of counties in the United States and can exist in both rural and urban areas. A scarcity of medical resources, however, does not have to doom the health of entire communities, says Onisis Stefas, PharmD, Northwell’s chief pharmacy officer and CEO at Vivo Health Pharmacy. He joins Alex Hellinger, DPT, MBA, FACHE, Northwell's senior vice president and regional executive director for the Brooklyn region, who shares his experiences working to fill the care desert in lower Manhattan's west side following the closing of St. Vincent's in 2010. Then the executive director of Lenox Health Greenwich Village, he and Dr. Stefas talk types of care deserts, re-imagining what care looks like, the role pharmacists can play, and what to do if you live in a care desert.

Chapters:

00:54 - Care deserts: types and causes

01:54 - Physician shortages

02:37 - Hospital closures and finances

03:35 - Pharmacy deserts

04:48 - Rural vs. urban

08:15 - Rethinking health care

09:15 - An equitable approach

12:46 - A snowball effect

14:38 - Helping Brooklyn

15:32 - Covid-19's impact

18:29 - Transforming medical deserts

 

 

The latest on long Covid

Researchers have identified more than 200 symptoms associated with the long-term effects of Covid-19, but much remains unknown. Peter Silver, MD and Sonali Narain, MD shed light on some of the mysteries that surround long Covid, also known as post-acute sequelae of SARS-CoV-2 (PASC). They offer context to the current state of the disease and actions being taken by the medical and research communities to combat and better understand it.

Meet the experts

Peter Silver, MD is the Chief Quality Officer at Northwell Health. He is responsible for system-wide initiatives in care quality and patient safety.

Sonali Narain, MD is a Director of the Scleroderma and Raynaud Treatment Center and the Epidemiology division of Rheumatology. She is also an assistant professor at the Feinstein Institutes for Medical Research and Director of the Northwell Health CARES Learning Collaborative.

The CARES program is model designed to increase patient access across treatment areas and amplify a patient-centered experience. 

From New York to Guyana: Building cross-cultural understanding

A group of medical professionals arrived in Guyana this week to deliver care, exchange knowledge and develop a plan to support the more remote areas of the South American country. This work is part of a five-year medical partnership between the Ministry of Health of Guyana and Northwell Health, through its Center for Global Health (CGH). Daniel Leon is among those who traveled 2,500-plus miles for the three-week trip. He shares his experiences and connection to Guyana, as well as his passion for global health and the critical role the CGH plays. Also joining the show is Launette Woolforde, EdP, DNP, chief nursing officer for the Northwell's Western Region, who was part of the CGH's prior trip to Guyana in November 2021. Born and raised in Guyana, the chief nursing officer for Northwell Health's Western Region explains the benefits of clinicians broadening cross-cultural understanding, particularly for the communities of Little Guyana in Queens, as well as surrounding neighborhoods that makeup the fifth largest immigrant population in New York City.

Donations to the Center for Global Health will benefit Northwell's Ukraine relief fund.

Chapters:

• 01:08 - Daniel Leon on returning to Guyana
• 02:09 - EMS in a rough terrain
• 03:07 - Medical education in a tropical climate
• 03:57 - A deep connection
• 05:20 - Building a partnership
• 06:49 - A focus on mental health
• 07:39 - How to support global health efforts
• 08:56 - Launette Woolforde on nursing collaboration
• 10:45 - Mutual benefit
• 12:25 - Tropical medicine
• 13:46 - Local is global in Little Guyana
• 15:43 - Value for medical students
• 18:05 - A selfless cause

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