20-Minute Health Talk

Screening smarter: How Northwell is improving prostate biopsy

While cancer deaths are in decline in the United States, there is one glaring exception: Prostate cancer. Over the last decade, the number of prostate cancer deaths has risen by 3%. Our guest today, Ardeshir Rastinehad, DO, has made it his mission to turn that number around. In addition to his leading role in developing a safer, more accurate approach to prostate biopsies, the former National Institutes of Health researcher is now part of the team at Northwell Health implementing a new fast-track system that has dramatically cut the time it takes to go from screening to diagnosis. Dr. Rastinehad is Northwell Health’s Director for Prostate Cancer and the Vice Chair at the Smith Institute for Urology at Lenox Hill Hospital.

Podcast transcript.

Food as opportunity: Breaking the cycle of poverty through urban farming

Within a three-block radius of P.S. 175 in Harlem, there are 55 fast-food restaurants, 29 pharmacies and not one affordable food option, something Tony Hillery noticed while volunteering at the school more than a decade ago. He also saw an opportunity to help, which is why he launched Harlem Grown. Starting with one abandoned lot across the street from the school, Tony and the kids have built it into a network of 13 urban farms that harvest 6 tons (that's 3,000 lbs) of fresh, organically grown produce per year. The best part, the kids of P.S. 175, along with eight other Harlem schools, are the ones growing it — with help from their families and other community members.

On this episode, Sandra Lindsay visits Tony Hillery at one of these farms to learn more about the growth of this transformational non-profit, which is helping to revitalize a community with a great need — one kid at a time.

Podcast transcript

This is Part 3 of a series on Food as Health. Parts 1 and 2 are in our feed.

• Part 1: Food as health: Making hospital food heal
• Part 2: Food insecurity: How Northwell is helping

Watch episodes of 20-Minute Health Talk on YouTube. 

Have an idea about how a vacant property could serve the community? Learn more about the process to acquire public property, such as empty lots in your neighborhood. 

Food insecurity: How Northwell is helping

The lack of consistent access to quality food, or food insecurity, can have a devastating impact on people's health and well-being. In the wealthiest nation in the world, 34 million people, including 9 million children, are food insecure — a silent crisis that our guest, Debbie Salas-Lopez, MD, MPH, says is only getting worse. She explains how food insecurity impacts health at every age and what Northwell Health is doing to support these communities.

This is Part 2 of our three-part series on food as health. Listen to Part 1, highlighting how Northwell's hospital food transformation and how two experts, Seven Gierlinger and Chef Bruno Tison, led the way. Continue listening as we speak with Tony Hillery from Harlem Grown in Part 3: Food as opportunity.

Food is health: How these two experts made hospital food delicious and nutritious

Hospital food has a reputation for being bland and inedible — something that's no longer true at Northwell's 21 hospitals. Over the last seven years, our guests — Sven Gierlinger and Chef Bruno Tison — have transformed hospital meals by ditching frozen food and sugary drinks for fresh meats, fruits and vegetables. They've ensured that hospital kitchens prioritize fresh ingredients and cater to the patient population, and now chefs are able to deliver meals that look, smell and taste better — and the food is much healthier, as well.

 

This is Part 1 of a three-part series all about Food as Health. Continue listening to this series:

• Part 2: Food insecurity: How Northwell is helping
• Part 3: Food as opportunity: Breaking the cycle of poverty through urban farming

On this episode, Gierlinger and Tison explain how:

• They transformed hospital food from "inedible" to gourmet
• A higher caliber of cuisine can help patients
• They are helping other hospitals and health systems adopt this model

Meet the experts

Bruno Tison is the vice president of food services and corporate executive chef. Previously he spent 14 years as executive chef for the Plaza Hotel in New York City. Tison earned Michelin star recognition for three consecutive years as the executive chef at the Fairmont Sonoma Mission Inn and Spa in California.

Sven Gierlinger is Northwell's Chief Experience Officer. He started his career in the luxury hotel business, holding a series of leadership positions with the Ritz-Carlton Hotel Company. 

 

Heart disease and pregnancy: Prevention, treatments and a new approach

Pregnancy is like a stress test on the body. Most women adapt just fine, but for some, the strain can dramatically raise the risk of heart disease — even in young women. Worse, that risk can remain elevated for years and even decades. On this episode, host Sandra Lindsay, DHS-c, RN, speaks with Evelina Grayver, MD, about how to prevent heart-related problems before, during and after pregnancy. Because heart disease continues to be the No. 1 cause of maternal mortality in the US, Dr. Grayver helped launch a cutting-edge Cardio-Obstetrics Program at Northwell Health to help detect and prevent heart issues for expectant moms.

The specialty is relatively new, so education for patients and clinicians is critical, says Dr. Grayver, who serves as director of Northwell's Women’s Heart Program for the Central Region; and is a member of the Katz Institute for Women's Health.

In this episode, she discusses the need for:

• Pre-conception counseling with a cardiologist and OB/GYN
• Understanding your risks before, during and after pregnancy
• Learning the difference between common signs and symptoms of pregnancy and adverse cardiac events like preeclampsia
• Diet and exercise during pregnancy

Additional reading

• Cardiac patient shares her renewed hope for a healthy pregnancy thanks to cardio-obstetrics program. Watch video.
• Catherine Weinberg, MD, explains that the stress pregnancy places on the heart doesn’t stop at delivery in this Expert Insights column for the Katz Institute for Women's Health. 
• By addressing the influence of pregnancy, genetics or cancer on heart health, experts explain how hybrid approaches to care are making a difference.

Preparing high schoolers for medical careers: Northwell partners with FutureReadyNYC

Knowing what you want to be when you grow up can be tricky, but the New York City's Department of Education internship program, FutureReadyNYC, is designed to help. The program provides high school students with exposure to professional careers; Northwell is the program's first healthcare partner. Lenox Hill Hospital on Manhattan's Upper East Side, LIJ Forest Hills Hospital in Queens, and Lenox Health Greenwich Village in lower Manhattan gave students a sense of what a career in medicine could be like. On this episode, Sandra Lindsay, DHSc, MBA, MSN, RN, speaks with two of the 65 participating teens, Suravi and Ayannah, as well as Northwell's vice president for Workforce & Community Education, Brian Aquart, who helps oversee the program.

Understanding the options for hernia surgery

Of the 1 million people who need hernia surgery in the US each year, most get a procedure that inserts a mesh patch to cover the hernia. Mesh surgery has a high rate of success and satisfies most patients, but some people would rather skip the insert. There is an alternative called the Shouldice Approach: Instead of using mesh, this procedure stitches together the patient's own tissue to repair a hernia. Samer Sbayi, MD, is a leading expert in both surgical approaches and joins the podcast to explain what everyone should know about hernia repairs. 

Dr. Sbayi recently joined Glen Cove Hospital and serves as associate chair of surgery. He is also a Professor of Surgery at Hofstra/Northwell. 

Podcast transcript

Chapters:

• 00:01 - Intro
• 00:57 - What is a hernia?
• 01:56 - What does a hernia look like? 
• 02:14 - What causes a hernia?
• 03:15 - When to worry about hernia pain
• 04:27 - Types of hernias
• 06:17 - When do you need hernia surgery?
• 07:29 - Hernia surgery: Mesh vs meshless
• 08:33 - Shouldice Approach: a no mesh hernia repair
• 10:01 - History of hernia surgery
• 11:32 - Training at the Shouldice Hospital
• 12:35 - Who should get a Shouldice hernia repair?
• 14:34 - A robotic approach
• 16:22 - Hernia surgery complications
• 18:50 - Training residents in meshless hernia repair

 

 

Pregnant while Black: A conversation with Dr. Monique Rainford

On this episode, Sandra Lindsay speaks with Monique Rainford, MD, about her new book, "Pregnant While Black: Advancing Justice for Maternal Health in America." The Yale Medicine OB-GYN discusses the role implicit bias and institutional racism play in the birthing experience for Black women in the United States. She offers strategies to reduce maternal mortality rates, which are three times higher for Black women than their white peers. 

Podcast transcript

Better care for Black mothers and babies

For too long, Black women have faced high maternal mortality rates, largely due to institutional bias, says Dawnette Lewis, MD, director of Northwell Health's Center for Maternal Health. She joins host Sandra Lindsay, RN, DHSc on this episode during Black Maternal Health Week to discuss the barriers to care Black women face, and what her team is doing to improve access to life-saving services before, during, and after pregnancy. Dr. Lewis has practiced for more than 20 years in maternal-fetal medicine and now oversees all aspects of Northwell’s Maternal Health Program.

Read more about our efforts to reduce maternal mortality and morbidity through the Katz Institute for Women's Health. 

Podcast transcript

Emergency NYC: A new Netflix series featuring Northwell

This new docu-series follows the lives of a diverse cast of healthcare pros, including paramedics, nurses, emergency physicians and surgeons. On this podcast, we speak with two of the people featured in Emergency NYC: David Langer, MD, and his patient Julian Primiano, a young opera singer who underwent brain surgery. Dr. Langer is the chair of neurosurgery at Lenox Hill Hospital, one of several Northwell hospitals where filming took place. Others include: Cohen Children's Medical Center, North Shore University Hospital, Long Island Jewish Medical Center, Huntington Hospital and South Shore University Hospital. Cameras even followed one Sky Health flight nurse through her day-to-day working Northwell's state-of-the-art emergency helicopter service.

Both Julian and Dr. Langer share their struggles and triumphs and what it's like to watch their journey on Netflix.

Podcast transcript

More from the experts

• Dr. Langer shares his experience suffering a spinal cord injury in this op-ed in MedPage Today.

• Lenox Hill Hospital first in Manhattan to use brain mapping technology
  

• Learn common causes of pain under the left rib cage.

• Have pain under the right rib cage? An emergency medicine physician breaks down the most common causes, and what to do for each.