Practice Begins With A Triple Play

Not many doctors get to save the lives of tiny triplets who suddenly stop breathing, minutes after each other. Debra H. Etelson, M.D. ’95, found herself doing exactly that just six months after she began practicing pediatrics.

Dr. Etelson is assistant professor of pediatrics at NYMC and an assistant attending physician at Westchester Medical Center, where for one week each month, she supervises general pediatrics admissions and care. She works closely with residents and students, gives lectures and takes part in clinical correlation studies. 

Debra H. Etelson, M.D. '95

The rest of her busy schedule is spent seeing her own patients at Children’s Physicians of Westchester at 19 Bradhurst Avenue in Hawthorne, N. Y., the private faculty practice comprising 50 pediatric generalists and subspecialists who are affiliated with the College.

In January of last year, David and Nicole Martin brought their five-week-old triplets to Dr. Etelson’s office for a checkup. The boys had been born three weeks prematurely at Westchester Medical Center, and all three were sick with common colds. Upon examination, she found them to be clinically stable, but knowing the potential danger a virus presented to infants, decided to admit them to Westchester Medical Center. Dr. Etelson was making the arrangements over the phone when a nurse ran in and told her that one of the triplets had stopped breathing and was turning blue. Dr. Etelson had no sooner resuscitated John when suddenly, a second triplet, Ciaran, stopped breathing in another room. As she rushed to revive him, Dr. Etelson yelled to the staff to call a pulmonologist in the office. Moments later, the third triplet, Adrian, began having difficulty breathing. “When the ambulance arrived, one or two of the babies were incubated. The other doctor and I literally scooped up all three babies, ran with them to the ambulance, and got them to the hospital emergency room, where a crew of physicians were waiting for us,” says Dr. Etelson.

“It was scary. It happened when I had been in practice only six months after completing my residency,” she says. “Usually two physicians are in the office, but that morning I was the only one there. I just thank God it worked out well. It was probably one of the most gratifying things that ever happened to me, but I wasn’t really happy until they were breathing on their own. They’re fine now. They’re these huge, beautiful triplets. Now they come in and tear apart the waiting room.”

In addition to practicing and teaching, Dr. Etelson spends one day a week at affiliated Saint Vincents Hospital and Medical Center in New York City, studying childhood obesity, and parental awareness of childhood nutrition and the risks of obesity. The work is funded by a fellowship awarded her by the College’s Center for Primary Care Education and Research, which fosters clinical research in a primary care setting. “I’ve seen a tremendous increase in childhood obesity,” Dr. Etelson says. “My research will look at what is occurring in the home environment to cause this. My final goal is to educate parents in preventive measures.”

Dr. Etelson has grown accustomed to the limelight. The story about saving the triplets appeared on the front page of New York’s Daily News and was carried in The Journal News, the local Gannett newspaper, and the Rockland County Times. She was also a featured pediatrician in a special education supplement last year in The Journal News, and was interviewed on Westchester’s News 12 TV-twice in relation to the story of the triplets and once for comments after a toddler drowned.

Dr. Etelson is married to Adam Mayblum, and they presently live in Hartsdale, N. Y.  She grew up in Rockland County, where her parents still reside. She is full of praise for New York Medical College and its faculty: “All the subspecialists on campus are very strong. It’s a very comfortable feeling to know that I’m working with olleagues that I have full confidence in.”