SUNY Downstate News: December 2017

December 1 is World AIDS Day December 12 – 20  Hanukkah is celebrated December 25 Christmas Day

SUNY Downstate Announcements:

1. SUNY Downstate’s Center for Community Health Promotion and Wellness hosted an educational seminar on “Asthma Control and Prevention” for the local community.

2. Jelanie DeShong is the new Director of Government Relations. Jelanie brings great experience from local city government to New York State government. Before joining Downstate, Mr. DeShong served as Director of Community Engagement and Confidential Assistant in the Office of NYS Lieutenant Governor Kathy Hochul, where he was senior advisor to the Chief of Staff for operations, strategy, and work.

3. Downstate’s Students for Social Responsibility and the Chinese American Medical Society have offered free flu shots in various Brooklyn communities since 2002 and 2007, respectively. With support from the student clubs and University Hospital of Brooklyn, students were trained how to administer the flu vaccine.

4. The American Academy of Family Physicians (AAFP) Foundation endowed the Brooklyn Free Clinic (BFC) with the Family Medicine Cares USA “existing” clinic award of $9,050.

5. Brahim Chaqour, PhD, Professor of Cell Biology and Ophthalmology at Downstate, received two awards to support research related to treatment of incurable vision-threatening diseases. The new awards, totaling $2,008,973, are from the National Eye Institute of the National Institutes of Health

6. On December 1st the Arthur Ashe Institute for Urban Health (AAIUH) held their 25th Anniversary.

7. Leslie Schechter, MA, has been appointed Assistant Vice President of Operations in the Office of Academic Affairs reporting to the Senior Vice President for Academic Affairs, Dr. Pascal James Imperato.

Innovations in Medicine:

1. Chair of Surgery Dr. Rainer W. G. Grussner, and his team performed a total removal of the pancreas from a patient who had long suffered disabling abdominal pain from a history of pancreatitis. This procedure marks the beginning of a new program for the treatment of chronic pancreatitis at Downstate that includes cutting-edge islet transplantation to help patients avoid the onset of Diabetes mellitus following complete removal of a diseased pancreas. Downstate surgeons implanted a patient’s own insulin-producing pancreatic cells (“islets”) after the total removal of pancreas.

2. At Neuroscience 2017, the annual meeting of the Society for Neuroscience, Downstate researchers presented their work with novice military pilots. Our researchers’ work suggests that novice military pilots can improve their visual responses to a simulated emergency procedure by observing the eye movements of expert pilots

3. Downstate is the First in New York State to Deploy ORLocate Sponge System. ORLocate Sponge is a noninvasive counting/reconciliation system that uses radio frequency identification to eliminate the risk of retained sponges during surgical procedures.