Stony Brook Medicine’s Cardio-Oncology program is the first on Long Island to be recognized as an IC-OS Center of Excellence and awarded an IC-OS Gold Medal by the International Cardio-Oncology Society (IC-OS).
An IC-OS Center of Excellence is a program within a healthcare institution that is assembled to supply an exceptionally high concentration of expertise and related resources centered on a particular area of medicine, delivering associated care in a comprehensive, interdisciplinary fashion to afford the best patient outcomes possible.
The gold medal designation recognizes a commitment to multidisciplinary patient care, research and publications relevant to cardio-oncology, educational program, quality improvement, program building and cardio-oncology committee involvement.
According to the IC-OS, cancer and cardiovascular disease are the two most common causes of death and disease worldwide. The incidence of both cancer and cardiovascular disease increases with age. Stony Brook’s Cardio-Oncology Program is co-directed by Michelle Bloom, MD, (cardiology) and Lea Baer, MD, (breast oncology), with state-of-the-art cardiac imaging directed by Smadar Kort, MD, and just added cardio-oncologist Kristine Yang, MD.
Stony Brook is the only program in the region to have a team of IC-OS-certified cardio-oncologists who closely observe and care for patients with cancer who have an existing cardiovascular (CV) condition or who may be at risk for developing a CV-related problem during or after the start of cancer treatment.
The number of people battling significant symptoms from the flu and respiratory syncytial virus has been coming down since its peak in January, as these infections have run their course.
“This year, we experienced the most severe flu and RSV waves in decades, and our COVID wave wasn’t small either,” said Sean Clouston, associate professor of Public Health at Stony Brook University.
The number of these illnesses was high as people no longer wore masks in places like schools and after people experienced lower-than-usual illnesses in the months before the mask mandate was lifted, creating fertile ground for viruses to spread.
“The most likely reason that the current flu and RSV seasons have improved is that we have had such a bad season earlier on that we have hit a natural ceiling on the ability for these diseases to successfully infect more people,” Clouston said in an email.
As for COVID-19, the numbers of people who have developed significant illnesses has continued to decline as well, through a combination of the natural immunity people have after their bodies successfully fought off the infection and from the protection offered by the vaccine and boosters.
Doctors added that the vaccine and natural immunity hasn’t prevented people from getting infected, but they have helped people avoid severe and potentially life-threatening symptoms.
“All these people who run around saying, ‘My vaccine isn’t working because I got reinfected,’ are missing the point,” said Dr. Bettina Fries, chief of the Division of Infectious Diseases at Stony Brook Medicine. “It is working. It doesn’t protect you from infection, but [it does prevent] a bad outcome.”
Indeed, during the most recent COVID surge during the winter, Fries said the hospital continued to care for patients, most of whom recovered.
Vaccine timing
Amid discussions from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention and health organizations throughout the state and country about the timing of future booster shots, local health care providers indicated the increasing likelihood of an annual COVID booster.
Fries said we will get to an annual vaccination for COVID, adding, “It’s the same as we see with the flu.”
In general, people aren’t rushing off to get an updated COVID booster.
“To maximize the protective value of the vaccine while minimizing the number of vaccines you use, people should likely get the vaccine two weeks before they anticipate heavy exposure,” Clouston said.
For most people, that would mean getting the shot in early November to prepare for larger indoor gatherings, like Thanksgiving and the December holidays.
In a recent article in the journal Lancet, researchers conducted an extensive analysis of COVID reinfection rates.
The study dealt only with those people who had not had any vaccinations and addressed the effectiveness of natural immunity from preventing infections and from the worst symptoms of the disease.
Prior infections in general didn’t prevent people from getting reinfected, but it does “protect you from getting a really bad disease and dying,” Fries said.
Long COVID
Even with the number of people contracting COVID declining, the overall population of people battling symptoms of long COVID, which can still include anything from loss of smell and taste to chronic fatigue, continues to increase.
“There’s a plethora of symptoms of long COVID,” Fries said. “We’ll have to figure out how to classify this and hopefully come up with better therapy. Right now, we can only symptomatically treat these patients.”
Dr. Sritha Rajupet, director of the Stony Brook Medicine Post-COVID Clinic, explained in an email that some patients who have lost their sense of smell or have a distorted sense of taste have tried a process called a stellate ganglion block “after several case reports and early research have shown that it could be helpful.”
In such a procedure, doctors inject a local anesthetic on either side of the voice box into the neck. Rajupet said that “additional research and clinical trials still have to be performed.”
Newborns and COVID
As for children infected with COVID soon after birth, doctors suggested that the impact has been manageable.
“The great majority of young children who contract COVID do quite well and recover fully,” Dr. Susan Walker, pediatrician with Stony Brook Children’s Services, explained in an email. “The impact on their development from having actually experienced COVID illness is minimal.”
Children hospitalized with more significant illness from COVID might experience temporary developmental regression which is common in children hospitalized for any reason. The developmental impact seems more tied to social isolation.
“Children born during the pandemic spent their first years of life rarely seeing adults or children other than those in their immediate family,” Walker said. “The result is that many of these kids became excessively stranger anxious and timid around others.”
The lost social opportunities, the pediatrician said, resulted in delays in the personal/social domain of development. She added, “The good news is that kids are resilient and, in time, with appropriate social stimulation, [these children] should be able to regroup and catch up developmentally.”
Previously invisible to most of the public, the infectious disease team at Stony Brook Medicine took center stage from the beginning of the pandemic in 2020 through today as area residents have battled COVID-19 and other diseases.
With a peak of over 500 people hospitalized at Stony Brook University Hospital with COVID-19 in 2020, the combination of Drs. Bettina Fries, Susan Donelan and Sharon Nachman provided best practices to protect hospital staff and patients, gathered information about the developing virus and communicated through the media with a public desperate for information.
Working with teams of other dedicated health care professionals, these infectious disease doctors helped treat and save numerous patients.
TBR News Media is pleased to name Fries, Donelan and Nachman as People of the Year for 2022.
“Stony Brook Hospital got all kinds of kudos during the height of the pandemic,” said Dr. Jonathan Buscaglia, chief medical officer at Stony Brook University Hospital. “When you’re going through a hurricane crisis, you need somebody who has a clue about hurricanes to lead you. Those people were our leaders.”
At the time, the team of infectious disease doctors impressed their colleagues not only with their effectiveness, but also with their tireless work.
“When COVID happened, it was a calling” for these infectious disease experts, Buscaglia said.
In the beginning of the disease, little was known about the most effective treatment, which meant doctors from several departments came together to create a standard protocol.
The infectious disease faculty “contributed significantly” to develop these practices, said Dr. Vincent Yang, chair of Medicine at the Renaissance School of Medicine at SBU.
Dr. Bettina Fries. Photo from Stony Brook Medicine
Dr. Bettina Fries, the chief who served on the front lines
Chief of the Division of Infectious Diseases at Stony Brook Medicine, Fries is a “nationally if not world-renowned physician scientist,” Buscaglia said.
As with her colleagues, Fries works directly with sick residents.
Fries “100% served on the front lines to care for all the hospitalized patients with COVID,” said Buscaglia, which included working seven days a week for weeks on end. She guided her staff and helped other physicians.
Early on, Fries was also “instrumental in getting a manufacturer of face masks to donate a significant number to the hospital,” Yang said. This was a key part of the personal protective equipment that had been scarce during the unsettled early part of the pandemic.
Yang described her as “highly motivated, energetic and forward thinking” and believes she is a “wonderful leader” who is detail oriented. Fries provides clear expectations for people who work for her and is an avid educator, Yang added.
As an expert in using monoclonal antibodies to treat various bacterial infections, Fries helped direct an effective therapy using these antibodies for COVID patients, according to Yang.
Fries and her team were also involved in consulting on patients, not just for COVID but also for secondary infections, Yang said.
Connie Kraft, emergency manager in the Emergency Management Office at SBUH, described Fries as “very personable” and appreciates how she studies scientific data to crunch the numbers.
Dr. Susan Donelan. Photo from Stony Brook Medicine
Dr. Susan Donelan, a ‘hero’ who lost sleep to help patients
Donelan, who earned her bachelor of science degree from SBU, is medical director of Healthcare Epidemiology at Stony
Brook Medicine.
In addition to caring for patients, Donelan also worked to avoid the spread of COVID at the hospital, reducing the risk to staff and to Long Islanders who came to the hospital for other medical needs.
“We don’t want patients coming in without COVID getting it while they’re here,” Buscaglia said. “It takes a special person to guide the rest of us.”
The hospital established a forward triage effort, which provided an initial assessment of COVID patients outside the hospital.
Kraft appreciated Donelan’s commitment to safety throughout the halls of the hospital.
“If you’re somebody who is walking down the corridor and your mask is hanging off your face, [Donelan] didn’t care who you are. She’s going to stop you and say, ‘Hey, pull your mask up,’” Kraft said.
As a subject-matter expert, Donelan was “our hero,” Kraft added.
Specializing in the latest treatments and symptoms, Donelan also helps faculty and staff with medical questions.
When Kraft’s grandson was sick, she asked Donelan for advice.
“She was right there, giving me support,” Kraft said, which gave “everybody a sense of calm.”
A tireless worker, Donelan often appeared on Zoom calls even during her time off.
She “doesn’t stop thinking about ways to help patients,” Buscaglia said. She “literally loses sleep about it.”
Dr. Sharon Nachman. Photo by Stony Brook Medicine
Dr. Sharon Nachman, active in front of the camera and behind the scenes
Nachman, who earned her medical degree at SBU, is chief of the Division of Pediatric Infectious Diseases at Stony Brook Children’s.
Often visible during her appearances on local broadcast news channels and in numerous local publications, including TBR News Media, Nachman is committed to ensuring the public receives accurate information.
“Giving people information about why it’s important to wear masks, wash their hands and get vaccinated, those are the things that affect the community,” said Dr. Carolyn Milana, chair of the Department of Pediatrics at Stony Brook Children’s.
Even though Nachman is a pediatrician and works at the children’s hospital, she, like so many other doctors, helps wherever it is needed, which in the early days included caring for adults.
Nachman was “instrumental from the adult and pediatric perspective making sure we had the latest and updated information about how to treat those patients,” Milana said. “She and her team were out there [checking] on all the patients to make sure they were all cared for the same.”
In addition to helping to get COVID vaccine trials up and running at Stony Brook, she has been active in trials to treat monkeypox.
Milana appreciates Nachman’s approach to children and their parents.
“She’s super friendly with kids,” Milana said. “She’ll tell you the facts as they are. She’s straightforward with parents. She wants them to have all the information they need to make the right decisions.”
From left to right, physician assistants Michelle Rosa and Katherine Malloy, Dr. David Fiorella and Dr. Jason Mathew visit Joseph Annunziata in his hospital bed. Photo from Stony Brook Medicine
By Daniel Dunaief
Joseph “Bob” Annunziata, a resident of Kings Park, wants you not to be like him.
An army veteran, Annunziata urges residents and, in particular, other veterans, to pay attention to their medical needs and to take action when they find out they have a problem.
A self-described “tough guy” who grew up in Bay Ridge, Brooklyn, Annunziata put off medical care for a partially blocked left carotid artery and it caused a medical crisis.
“My brother and sister vets, if you got a pain or the doctor tells you to do something, do it,” he said. “It almost cost me my life. I don’t want that to happen to anyone else.”
Joseph Annunziata at his 80th birthday party
Annunziata, 80, was driving to the supermarket on Veterans Day when his right hand became limp and he was slurring his speech. Knowing he was in trouble, he turned the car around and drove 10 minutes to the Northport VA Medical Center.
The doctors evaluated him and rushed him to Stony Brook University Hospital, which is well equipped to handle stroke-related emergencies and is the only hospital in the state named one of America’s 100 Best Hospitals for Stroke Care for eight years in a row.
Several doctors evaluated Annunziata, including by Dr. David Fiorella, Director of the Stony Brook Cerebrovascular Center and Co-Director of the Stony Brook Cerebrovascular and Comprehensive Stroke Center, and Jason Mathew, stroke neurologist.
“We identified that there was a severe blockage in the left side of his brain,” said Dr. Mathew. “If blood flow is not returned to this area, the patient is at risk for a larger area of stroke.”
Indeed, a larger stroke could have caused right side paralysis and could have robbed Annunziata of his ability to speak or worse.
Performing emergency surgery could protect endangered brain cells, but also presented some risk. If not removed carefully and completely, the clot in the carotid artery could travel into the brain or the stroke could expand over time due to a lack of sufficient blood flow to the left side of the brain.
Time pressure
Stony Brook doctors discussed the particulars of the case together and explained the situation to Annunziata, who could understand what they were describing and respond despite symptoms that threatened to deteriorate.
The hospital, which does between 200 and 250 interventional stroke treatments per year and handles many more strokes than that annually, has a group of health care specialists who can provide accessible information to patients who are not experts in the field and who need to make an informed decision under time pressure.
Stony Brook has become adept at “conveying this complex information in a time-sensitive way,” Dr. Fiorella said. In those cases for which surgery is the best option, each minute that the doctors don’t open up a blood vessel reduces the benefits and increases the risk of longer-term damage.
Stony Brook sees about one to two of these kinds of cases per month. As a whole, the hospital, which is a large referral center, sees numerous complex and unusual cerebrovascular cases of all types, Dr. Fiorella said.
Annunziata and the doctors decided to have the emergency surgery.
Dr. Fiorella used a balloon guiding catheter, which is a long tube with a working inner lumen that has a soft balloon on the outside of it that is designed to temporarily block flow. He deploys these occlusion balloons in most all stroke cases.
The particular way he used it in these complete carotid occlusions is unique. The balloon guiding catheter makes interventional stroke procedures more efficient, safer, and the outcomes better, according to data for thrombectomy, Dr. Fiorella said.
The occlusion balloon enabled Dr. Fiorella to control blow flow the entire time, which makes the procedure safer. The surgery took under an hour and involved a small incision in Annunziata’s right wrist.
Joseph Annunziata with his girlfriend Rosemarie Madrose
After the surgery, Annunziata was able to speak to doctors and call Rosemarie Madrose, his girlfriend of five and a half years. “He came out talking,” said Madrose. “I could understand him. I was relieved.” Four days after the emergency operation, Annunziata, who also received post operative care from Dr. Yuehjien Gu, Neurocritical Care Unit Director, left the hospital and returned to his home, where he spent the next morning preparing a welcome meal of a scrambled egg and two slices of toast.
The doctors attribute Annunziata’s quick recovery to a host of factors. Getting himself to the hospital as soon as symptoms started saved precious minutes, Dr. Fiorella said, as “time is brain.” He also advised against driving for people having stroke-like symptoms, which can include slurred speech, numbness, weakening of the arm or leg and loss of vision in one eye.
Dr. Fiorella urged people to call for help or to get a ride in an ambulance. Stony Brook has two mobile stroke unit ambulances, which are equipped with technology to assess patients while en route, saving time and alerting doctors in the hospital to patients who might need immediate attention and intervention.
These mobile units, which are available from 8 a.m. to 8 p.m., have helped reduce death and disability for stroke and have cut down the length of stays in the hospital.
People or family and friends who are observing someone who might be having a stroke can call 911 and indicate that the patient is having stroke-like symptoms. The emergency operator will alert the mobile stroke unit of a possible case if the unit is available and the patient is in range.
Helping a veteran
The doctors involved in Annunziata’s care were well aware of the fact that they were treating a veteran on Veterans Day.
“Oftentimes, we think about how we can give back more than just a thank you” to people like Annunziata, who “risked his life and helped his country the way he could,” said Dr. Mathew. “I’m helping him the way I can help.”
Dr. Fiorella added that he thought it was “wonderful” to “help someone who’s given so much to our country on Veterans Day.”
Army origin
Annunziata explained that he wound up in the Army through a circuitous route.“We watched all the war movies” when he was young and wanted to join the Marines, he said.
When he went to enlist in 1962, he was told there was a two and a half year wait. He and his young friends got the same reception at the Air Force, Navy and the Army. As they were leaving the Army building on Whitehall Street, he and his friends ran into a sergeant with numerous medals on his uniform. The sergeant urged them to go back up the hallway and enter the first door on the right and indicate that they wanted to expedite the draft. About a week later, Annunziata was drafted and got a 15 cent token in the mail for a train trip to Wall Street.
After basic training at Fort Dix, he was stationed in Greenland, where Annunziata operated a radar at the top of a mountain for two years. He participated in drills in which he had to catch American planes flying overhead.
Fortunately, he said, even during the height of the Cold War and just months after the Cuban Missile Crisis, Annunziata never spotted a Russian threat, even though the base was just 20 minutes from Russian air space.
Having gone through emergency surgery that likely saved his life, Annunziata urges residents to pay attention to any medical needs on their radar.
Dr. Fiorella was amazed at how quickly Annunziata expressed concern for his fellow veterans during his recovery.
“One of the first things he talked about was, ‘How can I use what happened to me to help other vets?’” Dr. Fiorella said.
Annunziata’s girlfriend Madrose, who is grateful that the procedure saved his life, said he “didn’t listen to me. He knew he had to do this. I kept saying, ‘When are you going to do it?’ He said, ‘I will, I will, I will.’ He learned the hard way.” She added that they both know he is “extremely lucky.”
WTC responders at Ground Zero, working on the pile in the aftermath of 911. Photo by John Bombace
As the medical challenges to first responders at the World Trade Center site after the 9/11 attacks increase, Stony Brook University’s treatment program has increased the number of people it helps and, recently, also the federal funds to support efforts to treat people.
Dr. Benjamin Luft at the Stony Brook WTC Wellness Program, where he serves as director. File photo
Recently, the National Institute for Occupational Safety and Health, which is part of the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, awarded the Stony Brook World Trade Center Health and Wellness Program $147 million over an eight-year period to expand patient care and support infrastructure needs.
The SB World Trade Center Health and Wellness program now sees up to 13,000 patients, which is more than double the 6,000 patients it used to see.
“Patients are getting sicker and their diseases are much more complex with a variety of different systems being involved, both psychologically as well as physically,” said Dr. Benjamin Luft, director of the WTC Wellness Program.
Through the work the SB WTC group has conducted, doctors and researchers have demonstrated that diseases and physical and cognitive challenges associated with aging have occurred more rapidly in the WTC population.
At the same time, COVID-19 has also exacerbated conditions related to exposure to the site, with over 20% of this population experiencing lingering symptoms due to the pandemic.
The WTC first responders have developed chronic sinusitis and a variety of gastrointestinal disorders, such as gastroesophageal reflux disease (or GERD).
While these diseases occur in the general population, “the chronicity is unique,” Luft added.
The SB WTC Wellness program will use the funds to hire additional staff with specialties in pulmonology and psychiatry, among other areas, Luft said.
The majority of the work occurs at the Wellness Center’s main facility and clinic in Commack. SB also runs a site in Mineola. The funds will help revamp the Mineola site as well.
The two sites will use updated technologies and will deploy emerging capabilities in telehealth and artificial intelligence to communicate, diagnose and monitor cases.
Federal funds have supported the effort for 18 years, as NIOSH has funded clinical services for WTC patients treated at Stony Brook.
Medical conditions for this population have included post-traumatic stress disorder and respiratory illnesses.
The funding more than doubles the $60 million, five-year award the WTC Wellness Program received in 2017 from NIOSH that had provided support until the end of March of this year. NIOSH had extended the grant for six months until the current funding started at the end of September, Luft said.
Patients have developed a range of cancers, as well as lung issues such as asthma and chronic obstructive pulmonary disorder.
Additionally, patients are struggling with a variety of mental processing challenges.
“We see a lot of patients who have a variety of cognitive and memory problems,” Luft said.
Luft emphasized that many of the thousands of patients he treats have several health issues simultaneously. By using new technologies, these efforts will enhance the quality of life for people who were on site after the attack.
Luft added that the connection and support from NIOSH have helped support health care for this population.
“The various people at NIOSH are really involved in the program,” he said. “It’s been very satisfying.”
Stony Brook University faculty in public health, psychiatry, pulmonary care, cardiovascular care and neuroscience all take part in ongoing research related to the health issues of WTC responders.
Luft emphasized that the care first responders at the WTC receive tries to be “proactive” with an extensive effort to screen for various diseases, including cancer.
The research and treatment efforts for the WTC population extends to other health care initiatives for people exposed to carcinogens in wars or from other unintentional exposures.
The exposure from 911 is similar to those from burn pits, Camp Lejuene and other hazards.
Recently, 1,150 members of the LGBTQ+ community participated in including Micah Schneider, from Ronkonkoma, above. Photo rom Lisa Czulinski
In a first of its kind survey of 1,150 members of the LGBTQ+ community on Long Island, Stony Brook Medicine found that people in this group struggle with numerous health care challenges.
Stony Brook Medicine’s Dr. Alison Eliscu was the principal investigator of the study that 1,150 members of the LGBTQ+ community recently participated in. Photo from Stony Brook Medicine
Over two in five people responding to an online survey between June and September of 2021 said they were in fair to poor mental health. Additionally, about one in three people had thoughts of self harm, while 23.9% had seriously considered suicide within the past three years.
People in the LGBTQ+ community are struggling with mental health and access to care, while they also have had negative experiences with health care providers, who may have been making incorrect assumptions about their lives or who haven’t respected them, said Dr. Allison Eliscu, principal investigator of the study and medical director of the Adolescent LGBTQ+ Care Program at Stony Brook Medicine.
Partnering with 30 Long Island-based community leaders and community organizations, including Planned Parenthood, Stony Brook Medicine created the survey to gather the kinds of data that could inform better health care decisions, could provide a baseline for understanding the needs of the LGBTQ+ community in the area, and could shed light on the disparity in health care for this community.
“The idea [for the survey] came out when we were creating the Edie Windsor Healthcare Center” in Hampton Bays, Eliscu said, which opened its doors in 2021 and is the first such center for the LGBTQ+ population on Long Island. “We were trying to think about what we want [the center] to provide and what does the community need.”
Without local data, it was difficult to understand what residents of Long Island, specifically, might need.
The data suggests a disparity between the mental health of the LGBTQ+ community in the area and the overall health of the population in the country.
Over half of the people who took the survey indicated that they had symptoms of chronic depression, compared with 30.3% for the nation, based on a 2020 PRC National Health Survey. Additionally, 23.9% of the LGBTQ+ community described a typical day as “extremely or very stressful” compared with 16.1% for the nation.
To be sure, the national data sampling occurred just prior to the start of the COVID-19 pandemic, in February of 2020, while the Stony Brook Medicine survey polled residents during the second year of COVID.
Nonetheless, Eliscu suggested that her anecdotal experience with her patients indicates that the LGBTQ+ community likely suffered even more during the pandemic, as some people lived at home with relatives who may not have been supportive or with whom they didn’t share their identity.
Additionally, the isolation removed some LGBTQ+ residents from an in-person support network.
Stony Brook Medicine has taken steps to provide specific services to residents who are LGBTQ+. People who are transitioning and have a cervix continue to need a pap smear.
Some members of the transgender community may not be comfortable going to a gynecologist’s office. Stony Brook Medicine has put in place extended hours to meet their needs.
Micah Schneider, a social worker who lives in Ronkonkoma, served as a survey participant and also as a guide for some of the wording in the survey.
Schneider, who identifies as nonbinary and transgender and prefers the pronoun “they,” said the survey can help people “recognize that we’re not alone.”
When Schneider was growing up, “I had a sense that I was the only person in the entire world dealing with this,” which included a struggle with identity and mental illness.
“We as a community have each other and we can lean on each other,” Schneider said.
As for medical providers, Schneider suggested that this kind of survey can alert these professionals to the need to honor names, pronouns and identities and not make blanket assumptions.
Despite some improvements, the local and national LGBTQ+ community remains at risk, Schneider said.
“There are any number of people who are actively considering suicide,” Schneider added. “It’s a very real crisis in our community.”
On a conference call announcing the results of the survey, Dr. Gregson Pigott, Suffolk County Commissioner of Health, described the survey, which Stony Brook plans to repeat in a couple of years, as “groundbreaking. What you have here is hard data based on the survey.”
Join Stony Brook Medicine for a free screening of the Oscar-nominated film “Crip Camp: A Disability Revolution” followed by a panel discussion via Zoom or in person at Stony Brook University Hospital, Health Sciences Tower, Level 3, Lecture Hall 6, 101 Nicolls Road, Stony Brook on Thursday, Oct. 6 from 4 to 7:30 p.m.
WHAT:
In October, the U.S. Department of Labor increases awareness of National Disability Employment Awareness Month (NDEAM), which celebrates the contributions of America’s workers with disabilities past and present. To recognize NDEAM, Stony Brook Medicine is holding a free film screening and panel discussion of the Sundance Film Festival winning documentary “Crip Camp: A Disability Revolution.” The film shows how a summer camp experience in the 1970s shaped the disabilities rights movement. Led by Maria Hensley-Spera, LCSWR, Outpatient Child and Adolescent Psychiatry at Stony Brook Medicine, a paraplegic herself, the event promises to be an engaging, informative, and enlightening evening. Following the screening, the esteemed group of panelists will discuss the film and the lives of people with disabilities today. Participants can attend in person or virtually via zoom.
FILM DESCRIPTION:
In the early 70s, teenagers with disabilities faced a future shaped by isolation, discrimination and institutionalization. Camp Jened, a ramshackle camp “for the handicapped” (a term no longer used) in the Catskills, NY, exploded those confines. Jened was their freewheeling Utopia, a place where campers experienced liberation and full inclusion as human beings. Their bonds endured as many migrated West to Berkeley, California — a hotbed of activism where friends from Camp Jened realized that disruption, civil disobedience, and political participation could change the future for millions. And did.
MODERATOR:
Elizabeth Bojsza, MFA, Alda-certified facilitator at the Alan Alda Center for Communicating Science®, Assistant Professor of Practice & program head for the Advanced Graduate Certificate in Communicating Science at the School of Communication and Journalism, Stony Brook University
PANELISTS:
Judith E. Heumann, Lifelong advocate and leader of disability rights movement, teacher & author
Michelle Nario-Redmond, PhD, Author & Professor of Psychology & Biomedical Humanities, Hiram College
Jeanie Waters, Paralympian wheelchair sports athlete and civil rights attorney
Brooke Ellison, PhD, MPP, Science, healthcare policy & ethics expert, author & Associate Professor, Stony Brook University
Jacob Greene, BFA, Graphic Designer of socks for autism awareness & recent graduate of New York Institute of Technolog
The Long Island Cranx Foundation, which completes "Epic Rides For A Cause" will bike to Stony Brook Children’s Hospital to deliver a check for $22,000 in support of Stony Brook Children’s Hospital Child Life Program and the Pediatric Emergency Department Expansion project. The Foundation has pledged a gift of $50,000 over 5 years, and has already surpassed its first-year goal of $10,000, on Wednesday July 27, 2022. Photo from Stony Brook Medicine
On July 27, the Long Island Cranx Foundation, completed its “Epic Rides For A Cause” biking to Stony Brook Children’s Hospital where members of the charitable organization delivered a check for $22,000 in support of Stony Brook Children’s Hospital Child Life Program and the hospital’s Pediatric Emergency Department Expansion project. The Cranx Foundation has pledged a gift to Stony Brook Children’s Hospital of $50,000 over 5 years and has already surpassed its first-year goal of $10,000.
With the help of word-of-mouth, grassroots fundraising, social media, and an event held on April 9th called “The Epic-High Five”, $22,000 was raised in about 4 months to help aid the hospital expansion project that will double the number of patient exam rooms and pediatric emergency specialists; enlarge the child playroom; purchase books and toys and bolster a pet therapy program.
“This gift and the ongoing relationship with the Long Island Cranx Foundation will have a far-reaching impact as we significantly expand our Pediatric Emergency Department to more than four times the current space,” said Dr. Carl Kaplan, Chief, Division of Pediatric Emergency Medicine, Stony Brook Children’s Hospital. “The foundation’s epic rides will help fuel our epic expansion project for our physicians, providers and nurses as they continue to care for the most critically ill and injured children in Suffolk County.”
“The connection between Long Island Cranx and Stony Brook Children’s has been a perfect fit,” said Michael Attard, Child Life Specialist, Stony Brook Children’s Hospital. “We’re incredibly grateful for their epic rides to help hospitalized children have a more comfortable, anxiety-free visit. Funds raised by Cranx helped with the purchase of cutting-edge resources such as the MRI compatible video goggles which reduce how often patients need to be sedated for MRI procedures.”
Brian LeDonne of Mount Sinai and Larry Alvarez of Sound Beach, friends for more than 6 years, were among the riders (Roy, Matthew, Loreta, Antonio, Larry & Brian) on April 9th who cycled for 20 grueling hours through the woods and endured 5 arduous laps on the 30-mile Glacier Ridge/Overton Trail System (GROT) on Long Island’s Glacial Moraine.
Matthew Herrschaft of Bayport and Brian LeDonne founded the Long Island Cranx Foundation in 2021 as a Registered 501(c)(3) Tax-Exempt Organization. The group has grown to 15 thrill-seeking mountain bikers and roadies from Suffolk County, with the collective charitable goal of giving back to the community in which they live. “I’m impressed by Stony Brook Children’s Hospital and its medical experts. Children’s health is top-of-mind for me as my wife is pregnant. We’re expecting our first child on October 3rd,” said LeDonne.
Alvarez is ecstatic that the foundation will have the opportunity each year to help Suffolk County meet its growing demand for pediatric emergency services. He joined Stony Brook Medicine’s MRI Department in 2010 and is now the lead MRI tech, overseeing the cardiac MRI program and the Child Life Program’s imaging service.
“I’ve been at Stony Brook Children’s Hospital for 11 years and have seen it grow and build. Every day, I’m grateful for the opportunity to help families and their children, and a lot of money is needed to expand the pediatric emergency room. Knowing that the ER will continue to get bigger because we are helping to contribute is something special to be a part of,” he said.
Stony Brook Children’s Hospital is Suffolk County’s only children’s hospital offering the most advanced pediatric specialty care in the region. The pediatric emergency department cares for about 21,000 patients per year.
About Stony Brook Children’s Hospital:
With 104 beds, Stony Brook Children’s Hospital is Suffolk County’s only children’s hospital. Part of Stony Brook Medicine, Stony Brook Children’s has more than 180 pediatric specialists in 30 specialties. The hospital is Suffolk County’s only Level 4 Regional Perinatal Center and Level 1 Regional Pediatric Trauma Center. It is home to the nation’s first Pediatric Multiple Sclerosis Center and also offers a Level 3 Neonatal Intensive Care Unit, Duchenne Muscular Dystrophy Center, Celiac Disease and Gluten Sensitivity Center, Healthy Weight and Wellness Center, Cystic Fibrosis Center, Pediatric Hematology/Oncology Program, Pediatric Cardiology Program, Pediatric HIV and AIDS Center. To learn more, visit www.stonybrookchildrens.org.
Stony Brook Breast Cancer Screening mobile truck. (8/24/18)
By Daniel Dunaief
Some groups of people on Long Island have a much higher incidence of a particular type of cancer than others.
On an age adjusted rate, African American men, for example, were almost twice as likely to develop prostate cancer from 2014 to 2018 as Caucasians. Out of 100,000 African American men, 216.6 had prostate cancer compared with 123.9 out of 100,000 white men, according to data from the National Cancer Institute.
Dr. Linda Mermelstein. Photo from Stony Brook Medicine
Dr. Linda Mermelstein, Associate Director of Stony Brook Cancer Center’s Office for Community Outreach and Engagement, is working with her team to address those stark differences and to empower members of the community to protect their health and make informed decisions.
“A lot of our focus is on addressing disparities” in cancer care in various communities throughout Long Island, Dr. Mermelstein said.
The Cancer Center Outreach and Engagement office has taken numerous steps to inform the public about research and care. The center has a Mobile Mammography Unit, which travels into communities to provide access to screening for breast cancer.
On June 5, at the Latina Sisters Support Inc. Spanish Fair in Brentwood, the Cancer Center’s Community Outreach and Engagement staff provided mobile mammography screening and cancer prevention and screening education.
At that event, the Suffolk County Department of Health Services provided human papillomavirus and Covid-19 vaccines and Stony Brook School of Health Professionals offered blood pressure screening.
An information chasm
Dr. Jedan Phillips. Photo from Stony Brook Medicine
Dr. Jedan Phillips, Medical Director for Stony Brook Health Outreach and Medical Education and Associate Professor of Family, Population and Preventive Medicine at the Renaissance School of Medicine, explained that Covid-19 exposed the “chasm” between what the health care profession believed and the reality of what works and what doesn’t.
During the pandemic, Stony Brook University brought a vaccination pod to Uniondale in Nassau County, which is a predominantly African American community. “Because we had no relationship there, we might have wasted over 200 doses of the vaccine” as residents were reluctant to get vaccinated, he said. “Even though [Stony Brook] offered something that would help, people chose against it. It’s not about the vaccine. It’s something deeper.”
Dr. Phillips said East Elmhurst, Queens, where he grew up, was “ravaged by Covid. I know at least 10 people in my community who were regular figures in my life that died. I saw how vulnerable of a position we were in as a group and I felt I needed to get involved.”
Dr. Phillips, who has a family medical practice in East Patchogue, together with Dr. Yuri Jadotte, Assistant Professor and Associate Program Director for the Preventive Medicine Residency in the Department of Family, Population and Preventive Medicine at Stony Brook, created three focus groups to survey the views and understanding of African American men on prostate cancer.
Many African American men don’t get screened for prostate cancer, even though such screenings could lead to earlier treatment and better outcomes.
By listening to what inspires African American men throughout Long Island to take action, Dr. Phillips hopes to tailor information to that type of delivery.
“It’s important to listen and understand,” Dr. Phillips said. Understanding what motivates people and seeking to provide the formats in which they prefer to access information can help establish a community connection and demonstrate cultural compassion.
Part of Dr. Phillips’s focus on preventive medicine comes from his experience with his father, who died from complications related to diabetes. His father, who was an inspiration for him, “didn’t live life in a preventive way,” which made managing his health more difficult, Dr. Phillips said.
With the numerous programs offered by the Office for Community Outreach and Engagement, Dr. Mermelstein said the group has four primary goals.
Dr. Jedan Phillips provides medical care.
“We want to monitor and understand what is the cancer burden in our catchment area” which includes Nassau and Suffolk County, she said. “Much of our activities are identifying the issues in terms of cancer” and understanding any barriers towards cancer care, like education, screening, diagnosis and treatment.
Secondly, she wants to provide cancer prevention services, screening, education and community navigation. Third, the group has a bi-directional engagement, with researchers getting to know the community and community advocates and the community learning about the research process.
Finally, the group seeks to catalyze the research by focusing on disparities, providing research services to the entire community based on specific needs.
One of Dr. Mermelstein’s first actions after heading up this team in 2019 was to create a community advisory council for the Stony Brook Cancer Center.
Janine Logan, Vice President of Communications and Population Health with the Long Island Health Collaborative, serves on that advisory council.“What I’m most excited about is that the committee understands the importance of knowing what your community thinks and needs,” Logan said.
Logan is pleased with the work the Stony Brook Cancer Center has done to educate residents about the lifestyle behaviors that can contribute to cancer, such as smoking, inactivity, and nutrition.
“They’ve done a lot of work in reaching out and educating communities to help them understand that these simple, modifiable behaviors can reduce their risk” of developing cancer, Logan said.
The effort at the Cancer Center to educate the public about the danger’s of the sun dovetails with some of the work she has done at the Long Island Health Collaborative.
Indeed, the Cancer Center Community Outreach and Engagement hosted a “Block the sun, not the fun” gathering on May 7 at the Smith Haven Mall in Lake Grove.
The Stony Brook Cancer Center is also working with the Suffolk County Department of Health Services Cancer Prevention and Health Promotion Coalition to provide information about sunscreen safety.
In addition to the disparity among African American men who develop prostate cancer, the outreach effort also addressed the difference among hispanic women who have a higher incidence of cervical cancer than the non-hispanic Caucasian population.
In Suffolk County, about 10.2 Hispanic and Latino women out of 100,000 Hispanic and Latino women develop cervical cancer, which is higher than the 5.9 per 100,000 for white, non-Hispanic women, according to the National Cancer Institute.
Human papillomarvirus is estimated to cause about 36,500 cases of cancer in men and women every year in the United States. The HPV vaccination, which works best before exposure to the virus, can prevent 33,700 of those cancers. Because the vaccine doesn’t prevent all cancers, women still need screening to protect themselves.
Previously employed for 22 years with the Suffolk County Department of Health Services, Dr. Mermelstein, who has a medical degree and a master’s in public health, briefly retired, before taking this job at Stony Brook.
“I wanted to do something to help address cancer after I retired, and so I contacted Stony Brook Cancer Center and began in this position about four months after I retired,” she explained.
Those interested in reaching out to the Office for Community Outreach and Engagement can call 631-444-4263 or email [email protected].
Paolo Boffetta. Photo by Jeanne Neville/Stony Brook Medicine
By Daniel Dunaief
Screening for cancer can help people take steps to head off the development of a disease that could threaten the quantity and quality of their lives.
During the start of the pandemic, people around the world stopped screening for cervical, breast and colorectal cancer, according to a recent study led by Paolo Boffetta, Associate Director for Population Sciences at Stony Brook University’sCancer Center.
The results of the study were recently published in the journal JAMA Oncology.
Compared to 2019, screenings for breast cancer dropped in the first few months after the start of the pandemic by 35.6 percent for breast cancer, 41.8 percent for colorectal cancer, and 54.1 percent for cervical cancer compared to the same period in 2019.
Paolo Boffetta. Photo by Jeanne Neville/Stony Brook Medicine
Boffetta chose these three cancers because they are the ones public health authorities recommend for the population at large. Screenings can improve patient outcomes.
“For some/ most cancer, the earlier the better for detection,” explained Stony Brook Cancer Center Director Yusuf Hannun.
Boffetta, who is also Adjunct Professor at the Icahn School of Medicine at Mount Sinai in New York City, suggested that the longer-term impact of a reduction in screenings in the early part of the pandemic won’t be clear to doctors or patients in the short term.
“It will take a little bit of time to have a full understanding of this,” said Boffetta. Depending on the specific type, cancers “that are detected by screenings would not otherwise appear for a few years.”
Boffetta suggested that the pandemic, apart from the illnesses and symptoms that threatened the health of people who were battling the virus itself, affected public health services. He believes several factors likely contributed to the decrease in screenings. Patients around the world were reluctant or restricted in their ability to leave their homes amid lockdowns.
Additionally, some cancer centers likely reduce the number of people they monitored to cut back on the density of patients in health care facilities, although Boffetta did not gather any data on the reduction in the number of screenings at health care centers.
The positive news amid this study, which surveyed cancer screening data in PubMed and other medical journals from 19 countries from January 2020 through December 2021, was that the number of patients screened returned to a more normal level within several months of the start of the pandemic.
“An important finding is that by the summer of 2020, the decrease in screenings for breast cancer and cervical cancer seem to have disappeared,” Boffetta said by phone from Italy, where he is a part-time professor at the University of Bologna. “For colorectal cancer [the decrease in screenings] lasted longer,” through the end of 2020.
Boffetta described the reduction in screenings and then a return to normal as a U-shaped curve, with an initial decline followed by a recovery. Doctors typically screen for colorectal cancers by using a colonoscopy. This technique requires several hours in the hospital. Patients may have been “more reluctant to go back to such a complex procedure, compared to the mammography or pap smear” which screen for breast and cervical cancers, respectively.
Boffetta is conducting a broad study of the cancer literature from early findings to clinical diagnosis to treatment. At this point, he has finished a paper on the frequency and types of clinical diagnoses amid the pandemic. He is collecting data for another study that will examine cancer treatment.
“We are interested in how the pandemic affected each of these stages,” he said.
Hannun suggested that Boffetta’s work expertise help address important health care questions related to the pandemic and other threats to public health, adding, “Epidemiology is essential for understanding the pandemic and many chronic diseases, especially cancer with exposure issues.
A lab update
Boffetta joined Stony Brook University in April of 2020, soon after the start of the pandemic.
Also a Professor in the Department of Family, Population and Preventive medicine at the Renaissance School of Medicine at Stony Brook University, Boffetta will return to the United States in a few weeks from Italy.
Boffetta has added Research Coordinator Germana Giupponi and postdoctoral fellow Malak Khalifeh to his research efforts at Stony Brook.
Germana Giupponi
A native of Italy, Giupponi, who started working with Boffetta in July of 2020 and provides administrative support and coordination with Boffetta’s collaborators, earned her master’s degree from the University of Milan.
Khalifeh joined Boffetta’s lab in March, is originally from Lebanon and conducted her PhD research in France at the University of Bordeaux. She is studying the link between the exposure people have to various chemicals in drinking water and bladder cancer. The bladder is especially susceptible to toxins from the environment.
Boffetta, meanwhile, has started teaching some graduate level classes at Stony Brook on cancer epidemiology for master’s and PhD students. He will teach one class this fall.
He is also continuing his studies with survivors of the World Trade Center attacks.
He has been comparing the survival of these first responders to the overall population in New York, comparing how the risk of cancer changed over the course of the 21 years since the attacks.
Boffetta has been working with Ben Luft, Director of the Stony Brook WTC Wellness Program at the Renaissance School of Medicine. Luft has provided clinical and research support for WTC responders.
Boffetta continues to have academic affiliations with other academic institutions, including Harvard University and Vanderbilt University.
Boffetta and his wife Antonella Greco, who have been living in New York City, plan to move to the Stony Brook area. Their three daughters live in Brooklyn, Italy and Argentina. Now that pandemic restrictions have lifted, Boffetta has been able to return to the opera and museums and has done some skiing and hiking.
As for this study, Boffetta suggested that the findings about screenings were consistent with what he might have expected during the beginning of the pandemic.Delaying screenings could mean that some people discover cancers at a more advanced state by the time they diagnose them, he said.
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