weillcornellmedicineSUMMER 2006 THE MAGAZINE OF THE JOAN AND SANFORD I. WEILL MEDICAL COLLEGE AND GRADUATE SCHOOL OF MEDICAL SCIENCES OF CORNELL UNIVERSITY The Inside Story Most men take better care of their cars than their bodies— but attitudes are changing Jack Richard ’53 William T. Stubenbord ’62 CO-CHAIR CO-CHAIR Sharing a Vision... Ensuring the Future The Lewis Atterbury Stimson Society recognizes those alumni and friends who have employed Charitable Gift Planning to provide for the Medical College.* Through Charitable Gift Planning you can create a legacy that will: • Provide needed scholarship support • Fund research important to you “This is a great opportunity. • Endow Fellowships, Assistant and Full Professorships It allows me to take care of • Create perpetual prizes and awards my family and the school gets a nice gift to help reduce some Through Charitable Gift Planning you may receive of the heavy financial burden the following benefits: these students end up • Lifetime income payments to you and/or another person carrying” • Lower income taxes Arthur Seligmann ’37 • More of your assets passed to family members • Assets may be protected from future legal exposure *The following gift plans are most commonly utilized: bequests, charitable trusts, gift annuities, pooled income funds, real estate, gifts of life insurance. For more information on the benefits of Charitable Gift Planning, and membership in the Lewis Atterbury Stimson Society contact: Marc Krause, Director of Planned Giving (212) 821-0512 [email protected] weillcornellmedicine THE MAGAZINE OF THE JOAN AND SANFORD I. WEILL MEDICAL COLLEGE AND GRADUATE SCHOOL OF MEDICAL SCIENCES OF CORNELL UNIVERSITY 20 TIME=BRAIN 2 DEANS MESSAGES BETH SAULNIER Comments from Dean Gotto & Dean Hajjar For stroke patients, the clock is the ene- my. Patients who arrive at Weill Cornell’s 4 SCOPE Stroke Center soon after the onset of a Biomedical benefactor. Plus: The state of stroke have a far better prognosis than the college, raising funds, preventing geno- they did only a few years ago. But even cide, fighting cancer, and editing a journal. for those who have already suffered seri- 9 TALK OF THE GOWN ous brain damage, the Center offers the Pressure point. Plus: International adop- latest in treatments and rehabilitation— tions, community clinic, a biotech thriller, as well as a sympathetic staff. and climbing Mt. Kilimanjaro. 26 IN THE COMPANY OF MEN 20 C. A. CARLSON Most men are cavalier about their health, and they often skip annual physical exams and put off diagnostic tests until it’s too late. Weill Cornell physicians are working to change those attitudes, striving to get men to pay more attention to such important problems as prostate cancer, infertility, heart disease, and high blood pressure. 32 LADIES OF THE LAMP BETH SAULNIER & MICHAEL SELLERS 18 A look back, in words and photographs, at the early days of the nursing profession, including the founding of the Training School for Nurses at New York Hospital in 38 NOTEBOOK News of medical college alumni 1877. The archival material is complemented by two profiles of contemporary nurs- and graduate school alumni es, one female and one male, who work at NewYork-Presbyterian Hospital/Weill Cornell Medical Center. 47 IN MEMORIAM Alumni remembered 48 POST-DOC Musical interlude 48 32 Cover illustration by Robert Neubecker Weill Cornell Medicine (ISSN 1551-4455) is produced four times a year by Cornell Alumni Magazine, 401 E. State St., Suite 301, Ithaca, NY 14850-4400 for the Joan and Sanford I. Weill Medical College and Graduate School of Medical Sciences of Cornell University. Third-class postage paid at New York, NY, and additional mailing offices. POSTMASTER: Send address changes to Public Affairs, 525 E. 68th St. Box 144, New York, NY 10021. SUMMER 2006 1 dEANS mESSAGES FROM 1300 YORK AVENUE Growing for the Future ANTONIO GOTTO JR., MD Dean of the Medical College space for neurology, pharmacology, pediatrics, and derma- tology. Many of the physicians and scientists who will be con- ducting research in these facilities will also benefit from Riverwalk Place, another recently completed project. This condominium building on Roosevelt Island features eighty- eight apartments reserved for our faculty, postdoctoral trainees, and their families. This residence is a major part of the Medical College’s faculty recruitment effort, since it offers young faculty and their families an affordable place to live that’s just minutes from York Avenue. Additional projects include the creation of two Distance Learning Broadcast Studios to deliver real-time instruction from faculty in New York to medical students at the Medical College’s Qatar campus, as well as the expansion EILL CORNELL MEDICAL COLLEGE’S LOCA- of the Department of Information Technologies and tion on the Upper East Side of Manhattan Services, which provides technology support for faculty and has afforded many unique opportunities for students. the College, from establishing a ground- In addition to these facility improvements, we are thrilled wbreaking partnership with the former New York Hospital in to report that our 300,000-square-foot, state-of-the-art 1927 to the more recent Tri-Institutional affiliations with Ambulatory Care and Medical Education Building, the cen- neighboring Memorial Sloan-Kettering Cancer Center and terpiece of the recently completed $750 million capital cam- the Rockefeller University. paign, is slated to open in December. Servicing Weill Cornell’s Through those affiliations and other endeavors, the million-plus ambulatory and clinical patient visits each Medical College has continued to grow—particularly over year, this wonderful building will serve as the flagship edu- the last ten years—at a phenomenal rate. One way of meas- cational building for Cornell University in New York City. uring our growth is the ever-present need for new facilities, Expanding our facilities has also contributed to other a “bricks and mortar” approach that reflects the increasing projects closely linked to the College’s growth. Over the last number of students and faculty and a greater need for more twelve months, four Weill Cornell Medical College start-up research space within the community. companies were formed and forty-eight patents were grant- Currently the Medical College has several major facili- ed for Weill Cornell innovations. Because of several major ties projects under way, collectively called the Major gifts to the institution, the Medical College also established Upgrade Projects, all of which have begun construction new centers and core facilities, including the Lehman since the first of the year and are expected to be completed Brothers Lung Cancer Research Center, the Abby and by the end of 2007. These projects will consolidate and Howard P. Milstein Chemistry Core Facility and Program rationalize research space in several Medical College build- in Chemical Biology, and the Arthur and Rochelle Belfer ings on York Avenue, resulting in 94,000 square feet of Institute of Hematology and Medical Oncology. new and renovated laboratory space. The College’s growth is also measured in myriad other One major element of the Major Upgrade Projects is a ways, beyond “bricks and mortar,” that include the growing three-story addition to the Medical College’s E Building, an number of students and faculty and the size of the Medical effort to build vertically rather than horizontally into the College’s endowment, among others. But these much-need- neighboring community. The rooftop addition, which will ed expansions and renovations, several of which have been utilize glass and brick to create a modern interpretation of funded entirely through philanthropy, will benefit all three the original 1930s building, provides office space for the areas of Weill Cornell’s triple mission of education, Research Animal Resource Center, as well as research research, and patient care. — Dean Antonio Gotto 2 WEILL CORNELL MEDICINE Career Pathways for Our Recent Graduates DAVID HAJJAR, PHD Dean of the Graduate School of Medical Sciences T OUR COMMENCEMENT EXERCISES THIS and Dr. Russell Poldrack. She tells us that her research spring, the Graduate School conferred thirty-nine project will build on the training she received with Dr. B. J. doctoral degrees and twelve master of science Casey on adolescent brain development and will study degrees in a joint ceremony with the Medical atypically developing adolescents with psychiatric disorders. aCollege at Carnegie Hall. This year’s graduates were an Adriana will start her postdoc in September, after getting especially impressive group, collectively publishing sixty married this summer to Bill Lowery, a 2002 graduate of research papers and participating in research symposiums Weill Cornell, who, after completing a postdoc at the (here and around the country) in record numbers. On com- Rockefeller University this spring, has accepted an academ- mencement day, our new graduates celebrated their superb ic appointment at UCLA in the Department of Molecular, achievements with family and friends as they contemplated Cellular, and Developmental Biology, where he will con- their next steps in biomedical research. centrate his research on stem cell biology. Most graduates go on to postdoctoral positions at pres- Academic postdocs are the choice of many, but our grad- tigious institutions that value the training they received uates are also taking full advantage of other options open to during their years at Weill Cornell. Graduates will join lab- them. Some are jumping into biomedical careers in the pri- oratories at the Salk Institute, UCLA, MIT, Harvard, and vate sector, accepting jobs at established companies or tak- the University of Chicago, to name just a few. Some will ing the lead in smaller start-up companies. Some are stay right here in New York City, beginning fellowships at interested in public policy and have taken jobs advising the Columbia, NYU, Sloan-Kettering Institute, and Weill government on science issues. A few are continuing their Cornell.