News and Events

Each year, the National Association of Student Financial Aid Administrators (NASFAA) presents awards to deserving members of the financial aid profession and higher education community. These awards are reviewed and selected annually by NASFAA’s Awards Committee and ratified by the Board of Directors. They are presented each year at the National Conference, with nearly 2,300 student aid professionals from across the country in attendance.

NYMC Leadership News: Anthony M. Sozzo, M.A., M.S. Ed., associate dean for student affairs and director of student financial planning and student activities

Legal reasoning may help boost students' ability to look at multiple sides of an argument, and how they approach their own schoolwork: understanding there isn’t always one solution, one answer or one point of view.

NYMC Faculty: Ira Bedzow, M.A., Ph.D., assistant professor of medicine and director of Biomedical Ethics and Humanities Program

When Native American students start the academic year at the University of Arizona College of Medicine—Tucson, they’re invited to attend a blessing ceremony. A traditional healer burns cedar and prays, then fans the smoke with eagle feathers to bless those in attendance, a practice known as smudging, which is believed to provide physical and spiritual strength.

NYMC Mentions: 
Daniel Kadosh, M.D. ’16, Westchester Medical Center
Fredrick Z. Bierman, M.D., director of graduate medical education, Westchester Medical Center Health Network and professor of pediatrics

To find better ways to diagnose the disease more reliably and maybe sooner, scientists are trying to identify genetic changes that occur in the body even before the immune system rallies. Other researchers are measuring immune responses that may prove more accurate than existing tests.

NYMC Faculty: Paul M. Arnaboldi, Ph.D., assistant professor of microbiology and immunology

When your institution offers resuscitation education, is it instructor-led? Online? Or a combination of the two, where an in-class instructor offers coursework and assesses skills using a feedback mannequin in tandem with, or following completion of, an online course?

NYMC Faculty: David Markenson, M.D., medical director of the Center for Disaster Medicine

People facing a poor prognosis may not want to squander their limited energy on traveling, undergoing invasive scans or inhabiting hospital environments. The location of trials in urban centers poses a challenge for rural populations. Additionally, eligibility requirements make it impossible to enroll when people don’t have a specific genetic mutation or have previously taken a specific drug.

NYMC Faculty: Mitchell S. Cairo, M.D., professor of pediatrics, division of pediatric hematology, oncology and stem cell transplantation, and professor of medicine, pathology, microbiology and immunology, and cell biology and anatomy

Although it is not only fair but also necessary to say that most right-wing Orthodox Jews — and even most chasidic and charedi Jews — vaccinate their children, just as most other Jews, from the centrist Orthodox to the farthest left Reform Jews do — and just like most other Americans do.

NYMC Mentions: Alan Kadish, M.D., president
Ira Bedzow, M.A., Ph.D., assistant professor of medicine and director of Biomedical Ethics and Humanities Program

Law is seen as a discipline in which either you are an expert because you went to law school or completely ignorant because you didn't. Of course, children and young adults learn what rules they have to obey—and they figure out which laws to protest. Yet, this is not the type of legal education that will create engaged citizens. Students should learn how the legal process works and the skills of legal reasoning, just as they learn other comprehension and reasoning skills in school.

NYMC Faculty: Ira Bedzow, M.A., Ph.D., assistant professor of medicine and director of Biomedical Ethics and Humanities Program

“A recent analysis of human-biting ticks worldwide considers H. longicornis a ‘frequent’ parasite of humans. ... If future introductions of this tick species should occur and if some of the introduced ticks were infected with [severe fever with thrombocytopenia virus], this could indeed post a public health concern.”

NYMC Faculty: Gary P. Wormser, M.D., professor of medicine, microbiology and immunology, and pharmacology, and vice chair of medicine for research and development

Recent medical studies have found that anaplastic large cell lymphoma (BIA-ALCL), which is a rare type of non-Hodgkin lymphoma, is notably higher in patients who have textured implants, compared to other types. The majority of women in the U.S. get “smooth surface” implants rather than textured, and to-date there has been no connection found between smooth and the BIA-ALCL.

NYMC Faculty: Kaveh Alizadeh, M.D., clinical associate professor of surgery

In operation for five years, it is the mid-Hudson Valley’s only fully-equipped biotechnology incubator on a health sciences college campus. There currently are nine biomedical startups operating in the center. They employ more than 50 people.

Bioinc@NYMC News: Salomon Amar, Ph.D., D.D.S., vice president for research and professor of pharmacology and of microbiology and immunology, NYMC; professor of dental medicine Touro College of Dental Medicine at NYMC, provost for biomedical research and chief biomedical research officer, Touro College and University System
Deborah Novick, director of BioInc@NYMC

The only known cure for patients with sickle cell disease is allogeneic hematopoietic stem cell transplantation from an HLA-matched sibling after myeloablative or reduced-toxicity conditioning. However, that cure is only available to 15% of patients due to the rarity of matched siblings.

NYMC Faculty: Mitchell S. Cairo, M.D., professor of pediatrics, division of pediatric hematology, oncology and stem cell transplantation, and professor of medicine, pathology, microbiology and immunology, and cell biology and anatomy

The annual Symposium showcases the college-like level of academic research by Stepinac’s Honors Academy students. It is a three-year personalized learning program for academically top students pursuing advanced studies in four academic disciplines—finance and economics, health sciences, law and engineering.

NYMC Faculty: Rocco J. Lafaro, M.D. ’82, clinical associate professor of surgery

Since Touro assumed control, New York Medical College has developed a program and curriculum that reflects its Jewish character. It’s not just in the special Jewish accommodations the school offers — such as an academic calendar built around the Jewish holidays and kosher food in the cafeteria — but also in the ways New York Medical College applies a uniquely Jewish lens to health sciences education.

NYMC Mentions:
Rabbi Moshe D. Krupka, M.S., executive vice president, Touro College and University System
Edward C. Halperin, M.D., M.A., chancellor and chief executive officer
Rabbi Ira Bedzow, M.A., Ph.D., assistant professor of medicine and director of Biomedical Ethics and Humanities Program
Leonard J. Newman, M.D. '70, professor and chairman of the Department of Pediatrics

CHADD (Children and Adults With Attention-Deficit/Hyperactivity Disorder) is a national non-profit, parent-based organization that offers support and information on AD/HD.

NYMC Faculty: Abraham S. Bartell M.D., M.B.A., clinical associate professor of psychiatry and behavioral sciences

“In addition, beta blockers can also slow a rapid ventricular rate in these patients, reduce ventricular arrhythmias… reduce an elevated blood pressure which increases the chance of developing a stroke… reduce angina pectoris if these patients have angina due to coronary artery disease, and are effective in treating heart failure which may be present in patients with atrial fibrillation.”

NYMC Faculty: Wilbert Aronow, M.D., professor of medicine

Biologics can provide clear – or almost clear skin – with few side effects in more than half of those who take them, according to experts and data from numerous studies. But too many patients with moderate to severe psoriasis are receiving only topical therapy or no treatment at all.

NYMC Faculty: Alice B. Gottlieb, M.D., Ph.D., professor of dermatology

The Caring for All award went to Peter Acker, a pediatrician with Greenwich Hospital and Westchester Medical Center.

NYMC Faculty: Peter J. Acker, M.D., clinical assistant professor of pediatrics

Of the many reasons to pursue medicine, dealing with insurance companies and perfecting the skill of entering data into the EHR likely do not make the list. Instead, you will hear stories about family members who were sick, admiration for a parent who is a doctor, or a love of helping others.  

BioInc@NYMC News: Samant Virk, M.D., founder and chief executive officer of MediSprout, a BioInc client

Remember: prevention is the best way to avoid tick bites. Robert-A. Ollar is consulting microbiologist for the Pike County Tick Borne Diseases Task Force Committee in Milford; consulting microbiologist, TBD Support Network, Milford

Faculty news: Robert A. Ollar, Ph.D., clinical assistant professor of neurology