After a two-year hiatus due to the COVID-19 pandemic, the SOM reunion was back in person on November 5 and 6. Alumni celebrating five-year graduation anniversaries and 50th-anniversary honorees from 2020, 2021 and 2022 cohorts, enjoyed an evening of dining and dancing followed by a brunch and campus tour the next day. Read the full article and view the photo gallery and videos.

The evening of October 26 was a special one for NYMC as guests gathered for the annual Founder’s Dinner at Marina Del Ray in the Bronx. More than 385 academic, healthcare, business, and community leaders came together to celebrate NYMC’s proud history and promising future and to honor distinguished faculty and alumni leaders for their impactful and transformative achievements. Proceeds of the evening benefit NYMC students through scholarships and important initiatives, and further NYMC’s mission to educate the next generation of physicians and healthcare providers, and support life-saving biomedical research. Read the full article and view the photo gallery and videos.

Wen-Hui Wang, M.D., professor of pharmacology, has been awarded a $2.7 million, four-year grant from the National Institute of Diabetes and Digestive and Kidney Diseases of the National Institutes of Health for research on the role of the Kir4.1 potassium channel in the regulation of hypertension and potassium excretion in the kidney. Read the full article on Dr. Wang's grant.

Marvin Medow, Ph.D., right, professor of pediatrics and associate professor of physiology, and Julian Stewart, M.D., Ph.D., professor of pediatrics, physiology and of medicine, have been awarded a $708,618 grant by the National Heart, Lung, and Blood Institute of the National Institutes of Health for research to better understand the mechanisms that cause postural tachycardia syndrome in young women. Read the full article on the POTS research.

The SOM Class of 2026 will be the first class to experience the new medical education curriculum launched this year at NYMC. The new curriculum, which was developed by a broad representation of SOM administration, faculty and students, integrates basic science and clinical course content during the first eighteen months of medical education, while also allowing students to enter clerkships much earlier in their education. Read the full story on the new SOM curriculum.

More than 300 middle and high school students, educators, parents, clinicians and community leaders joined New York's first Black Men in White Coats Youth Summit, on October 22, hosted by White Plains Hospital. They learned first-hand about the journey to becoming a physician from keynote speaker, Mill Etienne, M.D.’02, M.P.H., vice chancellor for diversity and inclusion and associate dean for student affairs, and associate professor of neurology and of medicine. Read the full article on the Black Men in White Coats Youth Summit.

Coma is a medical and socioeconomic emergency but how common coma occurs after acute brain injury was previously unknown. In a new study published in Brain Communications, Stephan A. Mayer, M.D., professor of neurology and neurosurgery, along with researchers from the Curing Coma Campaign®, have now managed to calculate the very first epidemiological estimates of the frequency of coma. Read the full article on Dr. Mayer's study.

Barriers to breast cancer screening remain despite Medicaid expansion for preventive screening tests and implementation of patient navigation programs under the Affordable Care Act, with women from underserved communities experiencing disproportionately low rates of screening mammography, according to a study that was conducted by NYMC SOM faculty and students and recently published in BMC Women’s Health. Read the full article on women's barriers to care.

This summer, Chi-Yen Yao, SOM Class of 2025, was one of just 70 students nationwide chosen to participate in the National Institutes of Diabetes and Digestive and Kidney Diseases Medical Student Research Program. The three-month program, funded by the NIH allows medical students, during the summer between the first and second year of medical school, to conduct diabetes-related research under the direction of an established scientist at an NIH-supported diabetes center. Read more about Yao's research.

According to a new study led by a team of researchers at NYMC and presented at the Society of NeuroInterventional Surgery’s 19th Annual Meeting in July, thrombectomy procedures can produce positive outcomes in patients experiencing strokes caused by a basilar artery occlusion—despite typically being reserved for the treatment of large vessel occlusion stroke. Read the full article on the study for patients with stroke.

Victor Garcia, Ph.D., assistant professor of pharmacology, has been chosen as a 2022 Sinsheimer Scholar Award recipient and awarded a $150,000 two-year grant by J.P. Morgan Chase to support research on non-alcoholic fatty liver disease. The Sinsheimer Scholar Award program seeks to support scientific research relating to the prevention and cure of human diseases. Read the full article on the Sinsheimer Scholar Award.

The Transformative Education Leadership Program (TELP) launched its inaugural standardized patient encounters to unanimously positive feedback from students, faculty and standardized patients. TELP was created by Lior Levy, right, and Redab Alnifaidy, members of the SOM Class of 2023, with the goal of building thoughtful, action-taking and anti-racist leaders and developing skills to address microaggressions. Read the full article on TELP.

Students and faculty from the SHSP and SOM helped educate the Westchester County community at the City of White Plains Neighborhood Health Fair and See, Test and Treat Program on October 1. Students volunteered to help provide free screenings for speech and hearing and share their knowledge on environmental health. Read the full article on the fair.

More than 500 attendees joined the Innovation and Entrepreneurship in the Biomedical Space Conference on September 15, where the audience heard from leaders in biotechnology and biomedical research. Following the impressive presentations, Salomon Amar, D.D.S., Ph.D., senior vice president for research affairs, TU, vice president for research at NYMC, who organized the conference, said "If we take the lessons that we've learned we can chart a better future for humanity." Watch the video and view the photos.

NYMC faculty authors had another banner year with 1,100 publications including 892 journal publications, 130 abstracts, nine books and 69 book chapters published in 2021. The astounding number of publications were honored at the 29th Annual Faculty Author Celebration hosted by the Phillip Capozzi, M.D., Library. Read the full article, view the photos and view the video.

Co-sponsored by the SHSP’s Center for Disaster Medicine, NYMC and TU hosted the 22nd COVID-19 Symposium on October 27. The webinar included a panel discussion on the new bivalent COVID-19 booster shots as well as presentations on the use of wastewater analysis to assess the presence of COVID-19 and polio in a population; reform and restructuring of the Centers for Disease Control; and the reappearance of polio in New York. Watch the 22nd COVID-19 symposium video.

NYMC's Office of the Registrar now offers electronic transcripts(eTranscripts) and certified electronic credentials, known as a CeDiplomas which make it easy for students and graduates to request and distribute their diplomas, transcripts and certifications. Eileen Romero, M.B.A., registrar, helped implement CeDiplomas and eTranscripts at NYMC. Ms. Romero shared the benefits of these new offerings.

The GSBMS and the SOM have entered into an agreement to guarantee conditional admittance for students in the Accelerated Interdisciplinary Biomedical Sciences Master's Program of the GSBMS and who seek admission to the NYMC SOM, if they meet certain academic performance benchmarks. Read more about the agreement.

Gerald Holzwasser, M.D. ’56: Award-Winning Radiologist with Mission to Deliver the Best in Patient Care

Gerald Holzwasser, M.D. ’56, is a physician who goes the distance: in his professional career that spans nearly seven decades, in his marriage that spans almost the same, in his steadfast patient care and as a runner who competed in several marathons over the years. Recently, Dr. Holzwasser reconnected with NYMC at the SOM Reunion. Read the full article on Dr. Holzwasser.

Esther L. Sabban, Ph.D., is Named the Sidney E. Frank Distinguished Professor of Psychiatry and Behavioral Sciences

Esther L. Sabban, Ph.D., professor of biochemistry and molecular biology and of psychiatry and behavioral sciences, has been appointed the Sidney E. Frank Distinguished Professor of Psychiatry and Behavioral Sciences. The Sidney E. Frank Distinguished Professorship was established in 2005 with a $5 million endowment to support a variety of educational programs and research aimed at understanding what triggers certain forms of psychiatric illness, including medical conditions, depression and stress related to trauma, disaster or terrorism. Dr. Sabban’s research focuses on the biology of the stress response and understanding the mechanisms of regulation of catecholamine neurotransmission. Read the full article on Dr. Sabban.

Rajkumar Pammal, SOM Class of 2023, Hopes to Be an Agent of Change in Emergency Medicine

Rajkumar Pammal, SOM Class of 2023 and president of the SOM Student Senate, doesn’t take the role of a physician in a patient’s life lightly. While pursuing his M.D. degree, Mr. Pammal has made it a priority to not only learn the science behind medicine but to embrace humanism when beginning to treat patients. While embracing compassion in his clinical studies. Mr. Pammal has his sights set on a career in emergency medicine.

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Call for Alumni Milestones

We would love to share your most recent news and accomplishments in our next issue of Chironian. If you have any accomplishments or developments, published a book, or have any family news to share we would love to hear from you. Please share your updates with us to be included in our class notes.