News Archive
January 2006 News Flashes
WELCOME NEW FACULTY
 Shari Midoneck, MD |
In addition to this new faculty appointment, Dr. Midoneck is an Associate Attending Physician in the department of medicine at the Iris Cantor Women’s Health Center at New York-Presbyterian Hospital/Weill Cornell Medical Center. She has held faculty appointments at the Medical College since 1994, after completing her medical degree, her Residency in Internal Medicine and her Fellowship in Infectious Disease, all at Weill Cornell.
“I am very excited to be working in the department of public health,” said Dr. Midoneck. “Preventive health has been a focus for me as a clinician, and I look forward to using my clinical experience to do research in the area of preventative health. I plan to investigate ways to improve the rates of colon cancer screening by targeting patients who are having mammography for breast cancer screening.” More information
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Gregory Dillon, MD, has been appointed Clinical Instructor of Public Health in the Division of Community & Public Health Programs. Dr. Dillon is a graduate of the University of Pennsylvania School of Medicine. He completed a residency in General and Plastic Surgery at the Hospital of the University of Pennsylvania and a residency in Psychiatry at Weill Cornell Medical College. He is currently an Instructor in Psychiatry at Weill Cornell Medical College and an Assistant Attending Psychiatrist at New York Presbyterian Hospital. In addition to maintaining other teaching and clinical responsibilities, for the past two years Dr. Dillon has served as a psychiatric consultant for the Adult Services Clinic of the Division’s Methadone Maintenance Program.
Larry Liu, MD, PhD, has been appointed Assistant Professor of Public Health (courtesy) in the Division of Outcomes & Effectiveness Research. Dr. Liu is currently Director of U.S. Outcomes Research at Pfizer Global Pharmaceuticals. Previously, he held positions as Director of Global Health Outcomes Assessment at Wyeth Research, Senior Epidemiologist in the department of Worldwide Epidemiology at GlaxoSmithKline R&D, and Medical Epidemiologist in the Communicable Diseases Services division of the New Jersey Department of Health and Senior Services. He also held research positions in the Department of Epidemiology at UCLA School of Public Health, the Epidemiology Group Biological and Medical Research Division of Argonne National Laboratory, and the Chinese Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. He has taught epidemiology at the UMDNJ School of Public Health and at UCLA. Dr. Liu’s current research projects focus on pharmacoeconomics, epidemiology, and patient-reported outcomes in various disease areas, including tuberculosis, AIDS, and cancer and other health effects of air pollution and chemical exposure.
James Duffy, MD, FANPA, has been appointed Professor of Psychiatry in Public Health at the Methodist Hospital in Houston. Dr Duffy is the Medical Director of the Institute for Palliative Medicine at The Methodist Hospital and President/CEO of the Institute for Religion and Health at the Texas Medical Center. Prior to joining Methodist Hospital, Dr. Duffy was Professor of Psychiatry and Medicine at the University Of Connecticut School Of Medicine. Dr Duffy is a graduate of the University Of Rhodesia School Of Medicine and has held faculty positions at Brown, Harvard, and the University of Connecticut.
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Tina Triburgo, LCSW, is a new Social Worker in the Adult Services Clinic of the Methadone Maintenance Program in the Division of Community & Public Health Programs. Previously, Ms. Triburgo was a Child and Adolescent Therapist at Staten Island Mental Health Society and a Child Therapist at Putnam/Northern Westchester Women’s Resource Center. While earning her Masters in Social Work from Columbia University School of Social Work, she also completed social work internships at Stamford Ridge Elementary School and at the Jewish Board of Family and Community Services in Hawthorne Cedar Knolls.
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Claudia Kaplan is the new Communications Specialist for the Department of Public Health. She will be responsible for the development and implementation of new strategies for the department's media and public relations activities, using the website, annual reports, newsletters, brochures, and other vehicles. Previously, Ms. Kaplan worked as a Web Content Manager in the Department of Information Technology at NYU Medical Center and as a Senior Editor in the Department of Public Affairs at Mount Sinai Hospital.
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Fred Periacci, MD, Resident in General Preventive Medicine, received the Distinguished House Staff Award for the Department of Public Health. This award is presented annually to a resident in each department by the Cornell/NYPH Alumni Association.
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Nathaniel Hupert, MD, MPH, Assistant Professor of Public Health and Medicine in the Division of Outcomes & Effectiveness Research, was the keynote speaker December 7 at the Cornell Entrepreneur Network (CEN) event: “From Bioterrorism to Natural Disasters.” CEN New York, the School of Operations Research (OR) and Industrial Engineering at Cornell, and the Metro New York Regional Office of OR sponsored this event for Cornell alumni and corporate guests to highlight several significant developments in Operations Research and Industrial Engineering and their applications to public health challenges of the new century. Dr. Hupert addressed the critical issue of catastrophe planning and response. In partnership with OR, Dr. Hupert is working on simulation and optimization modeling for system-wide response management in the face of bioterrorism. Plans are moving forward for a joint Public Health Laboratory that will support research to inform public policy.
A publication prepared for AHRQ by the Department of Public Health at Weill Cornell Medical College and the Center for Public Health Preparedness at Columbia University Mailman School of Public Health entitled “Community-Based Mass Prophylaxis: A Planning Guide for Public Health Preparedness,” was referenced in the new Department of Health and Human Services Pandemic Influenza Response Plan (p. 284). The Weill Cornell/Columbia guide, which describes the five components of a mass prophylaxis/vaccination response to an epidemic, was written by Nathaniel Hupert, MD, MPH, Jason Cuomo, MPH, Mark A. Callahan, MD, and Alvin I. Mushlin, MD, ScM, of Weill Cornell; and Stephen S. Morse, PhD, of Columbia. Weill Cornell was one of only three universities or university-related programs mentioned in the HHS document.
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Bruce Schackman, PHD, MBA, Assistant Professor of Public Health in the Division of Outcomes and Effectiveness Research, was awarded the 2005 Research in Action Award by the Treatment Action Group, a non-profit organization dedicated toward finding a cure for AIDS by advocating for larger and more efficient research efforts. The award recognizes Dr. Schackman's longstanding commitment in HIV/AIDS research, including treatment and care-cost-effectiveness analysis, quality-of-life measurement, and access to care by underserved populations. Also honored at the award ceremony, which was held December 11 at Artists Space in Soho, were NY State Senator Thomas Duane and director, author and photographer John Waters. Presenters included actress Kathleen Turner and choreographer Elizabeth Streb.
 Paul Christos, MPH, MS |
Paul Christos, MPH, MS, Lecturer in the Division of Biostatistics and Epidemiology, was a co-author of two recently published articles. The first, “Tumor Size Is a Determinant of State Distribution in T1 Non-Small Cell Lung Cancer,” was published in CHEST 2005; 128:2304-2308. Mr. Christos collaborated on the article’s study with six other faculty members of Weill Cornell Medical College: Douglas Flieder, MD, from the Department of Pathology; and Jeffrey Port, MD, Robert Korst, MD, Mathew Levin, BS, David Becker, MA, and Nassar Altorki, MD, all from the Division of Thoracic Surgery, Department of Cardiothoracic Surgery. The second article, “A comparative trial of psychotherapy and pharmacotherapy for ‘pure’ dysthymic patients,” was published in Journal of Affective Disorders 89 (2005) 167-175. The lead investigator of the report’s study was John Markowitz, MD, from the Department of Psychiatry at Weill Cornell and the New York State Psychiatric Institute. In addition to Mr. Christos, the other co-authors were James Kocsis, MD, Kathryn Bleiberg, PhD, and Michael Sacks, MD, all from the Weill Cornell Department of Psychiatry.
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The Public Health Department held a book publication celebration November 15 in honor of four department faculty who recently published books: Madelon Finkel, PhD, Professor of Clinical Public Health in the Division of Health Services and Policy Research; Joseph Fins, MD, Chief of the Division of Medical Ethics, Professor of Medicine, Professor of Public Health, and Professor of Medicine in Psychiatry; Inmaculada de Melo-Martín, PhD, Assistant Professor of Public Health in the Division of Medical Ethics; and Victor Sidel, MD, Adjunct Professor of Public Health in the Division of Medical Ethics.
Dr. Finkel wrote Understanding the Mammography Controversy: Science, Politics, and Breast Cancer Screening to help women make informed decisions about mammograms. Her book explores the controversy surrounding mammography, examining issues such as how breast cancer develops, how valid the screenings are, if and at what age women should begin to be screened, and how frequent the screenings should be. The book also discusses the efficacy and cost-effectiveness of different screening methods, explains how women can see federal reports on mammography facilities, and presents a time line showing changing public advice on mammography across the years.
Dr. Fins’s book, A Palliative Ethic of Care: Clinical Wisdom at Life’s End, aims to help patients, their families, and medical professionals make the transition from curative to palliative care, when it is appropriate and desired. Central to the philosophy of the book is that the patient’s goals should drive the therapy, as opposed to letting the latest technological possibilities drive the goals and potentially victimize the patient. The Goals of Care Assessment Tool (GCAT) described in the book is a system to help best uncover, formulate, and express a patient’s wishes and goals for care. More information
Taking Biology Seriously: What Biology Can and Cannot Tell Us About Moral and Public Policy Issues, by Dr. de Melo-Martín, offers an account of the often misguided discussions that take place about human biology and the consequences for ethics and public policy. It explores the mistaken beliefs about the role of genes in human life held by both proponents and critics of behavioral genetics, reproductive cloning, and genetic testing, and calls attention to the social context in which both the science and our ethical precepts and public policies play a role.
Social Injustice and Public Health, edited by Barry S. Levy, MD, MPH, and Dr. Sidel, with chapters written by 48 experts in various aspects of social injustice, addresses many aspects of social injustice and their relationship to public health. Major sections of the book focus on population groups affected by social injustice, areas of public health and medical care in which social injustice has an adverse impact, and approaches to the reduction and elimination of social injustice and its adverse effects on public health.
These books are available at the Samuel J. Wood Library, 1300 York Avenue, New York, NY 10021.
