physicians-from-new-york-city

"“When I was offered an office not equivalent to that of my male colleagues, I could’ve started marching. But I felt it was more important to focus on the prize.”"

"Although I chose a path in cornea and cataract surgery for my specialization, I could not help but be impacted by my observations of the prevalence of blindness among African Americans"

"Being poor shouldn’t hold you back either – when I talk to disadvantaged school kids about poverty, I tell them that the label of “poor” is a tactical assault of naming and shaming."

"“Service to the underserved was a natural evolution of my life from my Harlem roots,”"

"I hope that through my past legacy and future advocacy, that the current and future generations of young scientists will not experience the hurtful wounds of discrimination of any kind."

"I wasn’t seeking to be first. I was just doing my thing, and I wanted to serve humanity along the way—to give the gift of sight."

""Hater-ation, segregation, racism, that’s the noise — you have to ignore that and keep your eyes focused on the"

"Do not allow your mind to be imprisoned by majority thinking. Remember that the limits of science are not the limits of imagination."

"To me, it was home and a place of happy memories, and I grew up believing I was rich."

"I’ve achieved so much in my career, and it’s important to me that I pass on the torch and help to inspire others to get involved in science, technology, engineering and medicine (STEM) – whatever their backgrounds or circumstances."

"When I began my residency training at New York University, I had no idea that I was the first and only African-Americans ophthalmology resident. I did not know, or even care! But I did know that my superior grades, scores and credentials had earned me a coveted spot in a highly competitive residency, and that was awesome. I was happy and excited that I was about to capture my dream and become a great ophthalmologist by training in one of the most prestigious programs in the USA."

"“Philosophically, I like to think that my greatest accomplishment has to be those moments when I’ve helped someone regain eyesight, when I remove the patient’s patch and he starts with the big E and goes all the way down to the 20/20 line.”"

"My parents believed that with enough education, I could own the world,"

"The biggest challenge I overcame in my career was wanting to do research, but not having the funding or a lab to do it in. When I encountered discrimination, I stayed focused on my goal and worked to outsmart the racism I faced – with ingenuity, rather than wasting my time and energy complaining about it."

"Eyesight is a basic human right"

"Taking the high road may be arduous and long, but it will lead to justice and triumph."

"To be able to heal confers an obligation to heal, In an atmosphere of mistrust, it is critically important for clinical physicians and physician scientists to be able to translate their knowledge, their practice, and their science into the public domain."

"We all have a responsibility to create and sustain environments where women can not only compete, but can thrive. Institutions of higher education have had to rethink some of their models amid the pandemic and find new ways to provide experiential opportunities for students amid remote learning and, in some cases, this has led to new partnerships and collaborations between companies and organizations and colleges and universities."

"Doing that work is the true joy of training the next generation of scientists and clinicians who are going to be doing science differently, who are going to be translating science into care differently"

"That is so critical. Because I’m training the young women who are going to go into these fields, we don’t want them to be harassed out of them,"

"When I heard about doctors in Italy having to ration ventilators and then the incredibly likely possibility that that is going to happen here, my first thought was so many Black people are going to die."

"Dr. Bernadine Healy is perhaps best known for leading some of the largest, most respected medical institutions in the country. But on Valentine's Day 1999, she was dealt a blow that shattered her world. That was the night when Healy found out that she had brain cancer. Doctors gave her three months live without treatment. With , her chances increased to 18 months to two years. But eight years later, Healy is still thriving. Her book, "Living Time," is written from two perspectives — that of the physician and that of the patient -- about her fight against brain cancer. She hopes it will help people diagnosed with the disease to realize that cancer isn't "dying time" — it's "living time.""

"While leafing through a pile of the press clippings that regularly cross my desk at the National Institutes of Health (NIH), I was struck particularly by two headlines in the ' (May 31, 1991;sect A:1) that said, "Menopause Becoming 'Au Courant' as It Hits Women of Baby Boom" and, as the article continued on another page, "Menopause Comes of Age as Medical and Social Issue." Indeed, , in general—in terms of research, services, and access to care—has come of age and become a priority medically, socially, and politically."

"is good for a woman's heart. While generally accepted when the estrogen is produced naturally, this theory has been a matter of great controversy when the estrogen is administered "artificially" in (HRT) for women during and after . After a half century of conflicting data, we can affirm with growing confidence that, at the very least, estrogen reduces key cardiovascular risk factors in women at a time when they become especially vulnerable to heart disease, namely, after 50 years of age."

"Any kind of can be a very scary and daunting experience. But knowing how to navigate the and what to expect, at each step, may be the best antidote."

"Yentl, the 19th-century heroine of Isaac Bashevis Singer's short story, ... had to disguise herself as a man to attend school and study the . Being "just like a man" has historically been a price women have had to pay for equality. Being different from men has meant being second-class and less than equal for most of recorded time and throughout most of the world. It may therefore be sad, but not surprising, that women have all too often been treated less than equally in social relations, political endeavors, business, education, research, and health care."

"... You can easily find charts of ideal weight ranges: the tables of and the are the most reliable. But those charts can be confusing by giving wide ranges and often lumping men and women together. So I suggest that if you've picked up more than fifteen extra pounds or weigh more than 15% of your ideal body weight according to those charts, talk to your doctor. Is the weight a new gain, or have you maintained it for years? Are you currently ?"

"Here, Sir, you behold hundreds of poor children of Africa sharing with those of a lighter hue in the blessings of education; and, while it will be our great pleasure to remember the great deeds you have done for America, it will be our delight also to cherish the memory of General Lafayette as a friend to African emancipation and as a member of this institution."

"The only way to effect change was for more women to go into the professions and instill a different perspective—a more human touch and a more respectful relationship with patients."

"Women brought a feminist perspective to health issues affecting women. They examined power relationships among individuals and between individuals and systems. The very early drafts of Our Bodies, Ourselves, by the Boston Women's Health Collective, which was seminal in all this, said we need to know our bodies, we need to know what makes us healthy and what threatens our health, and we need to negotiate or confront the health care system to get the best possible health from it."

"APHA has always provided a home for people in public health with a broad view of what public health is. Public health is really about people's life conditions and how these conditions do or do not promote health. APHA is committed to equity and ending all barriers, and has always been committed to civil, human and health rights. It's a wonderful place for women to be."

"We still have a system that excludes, underserves, and even misserves all too many people. The latest census tells us that there are over 44 million Americans without health insurance. That is inexcusable. The failed social policies of the past few decades have widened the gaps between rich and poor, well and poorly educated, medically indigent and consumers of elective high-tech surgery, owners of multi-mansions and the homeless. We need health, but above all we need to create a grounding for healthy public policy that redresses and salvages the growing inequities. We cannot achieve a healthier us without achieving a healthier, more equitable health care system, and ultimately, a more equitable society."

"The women's movement was very diverse, but the more public positions articulated by the movement didn't include the experiences or concerns of women of color or of poor women."

"I saw that anybody who could afford an abortion could get a perfectly fine one. It would be written up as an appendectomy. Women from the US used to go to Havana to get abortions."

"What brought me to the women's movement was the women's health movement. The cultural elements of feminism didn't resonate with me, but abortion resonated with me. I became part of the women's movement in October 1970 at an international meeting on abortion rights attended by several thousand women and held at Barnard College in New York City."

"We got a lot of flack from White women who had private doctors and wanted to be sterilized,” she said. “They had been denied their request for sterilization because of their status (unmarried), or the number of their children (usually the doctor thought they had too few). They therefore opposed a waiting period or any other regulation that they interpreted as limiting access . . . While young white middle class women were denied their requests for sterilization, low income women of certain ethnicity were misled or coerced into them"

"A watershed in my life was getting divorced in Puerto Rico—that was my second marriage—and leaving Puerto Rico to become part of the women’s movement. In my formation as a professional, there was always a kind of pressure to deny or not use a lot of your personal experience. The science of medicine, to some degree, negates the human, feeling, experiential part of it. But I was now discovering a whole other world out there through my personal experience of a deceptive marriage. That triggered quite a bit of growth in me toward understanding what happens internally to people, what happens in their lives and what they can do or not do…So I went back to New York and I got very involved in reproductive rights. I began to join in the women’s movement. At Barnard College there was a conference called the First International Conference on Abortion Rights that was attended by a few thousand women…We organized one of the first consciousness-raising groups of Latino women…A number of incredible things emerged from women talking about their experiences…We shared and we became very bonded. That was the beginning of my identification with women’s issues and reproductive health."

"My mother was a schoolteacher who fought for reforms such as the right to teach in Spanish, the vernacular,” she explained. “English was imposed upon the Puerto Rican school system when the US military invaded in 1898."

"In Puerto Rico, racism was subtle. There wasn't the kind of separatist racism like in the US. I wasn't used to this."

"Several classes of antimicrobial agents (e.g., penicillins, cephalosporins, tetracyclines, chloramphenicol, and clindamycin) are useful in treatment of infections due to anaerobic bacteria. However, certain anaerobic bacteria have shown a striking resistance to antimicrobial agents. In vitro susceptibility tests are useful for selection of optimal therapy. The choice of agent depends, to some extent, on the organisms responsible for the infection. Bacteroides fragilis is the most commonly encountered anaerobe, and it is also the most resistant to antimicrobial agents. Other factors influencing the selection of therapy include pharmacologic characteristics, degree of bactericidal activity, and toxicity. Proper therapy for anaerobic infections often requires intensive antimicrobial therapy for a prolonged period. Surgical intervention, including drainage of abscesses and excision of necrotic tissue, is important."

"The bacteria typically described from biliary tract infection include Escherichia coli, Klebsiella, Enterobacter, and enterococci. It has also been recognized for some time that Clostridium perfringens may occasionally be involved in serious complications of biliary tract infection such as sepsis and emphysematous cholecystitis. Other anaerobes, including various Bacteroides and Fusobacterium sp, clostridia other than C perfringens, anaerobic cocci and streptococci, and Actinomyces have been reported from a variety of biliary tract infections, usually as single case reports ... More recently, several reports indicate that anaerobes, and especially B fragilis, may be more common in biliary tract infections than had been appreciated ... Anaerobes have been recovered in approximately 40% of such infections; B fragilis is the most common anaerobe encountered. Anaerobes may also be found, as aerobes are, in asymptomatic bactibilia."

"There is an impressive incidence of anaerobes in major infections involving the lung and pleural space, intra-abdominal sites, and the female genital tract. Almost all anaerobic infections are endogenous in origin. Therapy consists of making the environment such that anaerobes find it difficult to proliferate, checking the spread of anaerobes into healthy tissues, and neutralizing the toxins of anaerobes."

"Anaerobic bacteria produce many different enzymes that are of importance in providing nutrients to the bacterial cell, as virulence factors, and in permitting organisms to colonize or survive under adverse conditions (including exposure to antimicrobial agents). Some enzymes effect several types of modifications to bile acids, neutral steroids, and corticosteroids. Anaerobes are clearly important in a variety of infections in humans and animals as well as in various other types of pathologic processes."

"... a recent study of ours employing the powerful pyrosequencing technique on stools of subjects with regressive autism showed that Desulfovibrio was more common in autistic subjects than in controls. We subsequently confirmed this with pilot cultural and real-time PCR studies and found siblings of autistic children had counts of Desulfovibrio that were intermediate, suggesting possible spread of the organism in the family environment. Desulfovibrio is an anaerobic bacillus that does not produce spores but is nevertheless resistant to aerobic and other adverse conditions by other mechanisms and is commonly resistant to certain antimicrobial agents (such as cephalosporins) often used to treat ear and other infections that are relatively common in childhood. This bacterium also produces important virulence factors and its physiology and metabolism position it uniquely to account for much of the pathophysiology seen in autism."

"The most clinically important anaerobes are the five genera of Gram-negative rods. Bacteroides, especially the B. fragilis group (made of up ten species, one of which is the species B. fragilis), is particularly important. The other Gram-negative genera are Prevotella, Porphyromonas, Fusobacterium, and Bilophila. Among the Gram-positive anaerobes, there are cocci (primarily Peptostreptococcus) and sporeforming (Clostridium) and non-sporeforming bacilli (especially Actinomyces and Propionibacterium)."

"... (1) What is the clinical relevance of anaerobic bacteriology? (2) How can the microbiologist, with limited and decreasing resources, perform reliable, detailed studies of anaerobic bacteriology? (3) When and how should susceptibility testing be done with anaerobes? If the clinician knows the usual bacteriology of various types of infection and how this may be modified by pathophysiologic processes in the host or by prior therapy, he/she can use a logical empiric approach to treatment of the patient. As to the microbiologist's dilemma, it is not realistic or rational for a microbiologist in a nonteaching hospital to do detailed bacteriologic studies and routine anaerobic susceptibility testing. The resources available should be committed primarily to the patient who is seriously ill. Such allocation of resources, of course, requires repeated and effective communication between microbiologist and clinician."

"Anaerobic or mixed anaerobic-aerobic pulmonary infection is important both in community-acquired disease and in the hospital setting. Its principal causes are aspiration of oral or gastic contents and of organisms involved in periodontal disease. Indeed, pneumonia following aspiration is undoubtedly the most common type of hospital-acquired pneumonia and as such is a major cause of death and disability in hospitalized patients. Both endogenous oral flora (primarily anaerobes and viridans streptococci) and hospital-acquired oral or gastric flora (such as Staphylococcus aureus, various members of the Enterobacteriaceae family, and Pseudomonas) may be involved in the infections. The principal complications are tissue destruction (necrotizing pneumonia), abscess formation, and thoracic empyema."

"It has been a hundred years since the role of anaerobic bacteria and, especially, non-spore-forming anaerobes in infections began to be appreciated."

"Most gastrointestinal infections secondary to the use of antimicrobial agents that have been documented are related to overgrowth of Clostridium difficile which produces a spectrum from severe pseudomembranous colitis to mild diarrhea or asymptomatic carriage. The most common inducers of pseudomembranous colitis or antimicrobial agent-associated diarrhea are ampicillin, clindamycin, and various cephalosporins, but almost all antimicrobials may cause this problem. Symptoms vary from watery to bloody diarrhea; the extent and severity of the diarrhea, fever, and abdominal cramps and the incidence of complications (such as toxic megacolon and perforation of the bowel) and of fatality are variable. Normal carriage of C. difficile in infants and asymptomatic carriage in adults who have received antimicrobial therapy make it impossible to rely on culture for diagnosis. The presence of cytotoxin or enterotoxin produced by C. difficile is much more reliable diagnostically, but there may be false-positives with this as well, particularly in infants."

"The commonly used drugs that have a major effect on the colonic flora are ampicillin, cefoperazone, clindamycin and oral neomycin or kanamycin, used together with either tetracycline, erythromycin or metronidazole."