Faculty Bibliography

WHO plans to adapt many of the rapid response skills it learned in controlling the SARS epidemic and in responding to health emergencies in Afghanistan, Iraq and Liberia, said Dr. Jong Wook Lee, the U.N. health agency's director general. Lee is expected to announce the plan at a General Assembly meeting on AIDS today and to ask countries to appeal to his agency for help. 'From a public health perspective, we need to treat at least 3 million people by 2005 to avert an enormous catastrophe,' Dr. Jim Kim, who is overseeing the AIDS treatment program as an adviser to Lee, said in an interview. 'We cannot wait any longer.' The plan comes two months after Lee became director general of WHO, which was criticized for its slow response to the early years of the AIDS epidemic. After internal turmoil within the agency over its commitment to fighting the disease, the United Nations created a new agency, UNAIDS, under the direction of Dr. Peter Piot, to coordinate the global effort

While it is true that we still make a decent living, at the same time, we must hire more and more staff members to handle certifications, pre-certifications and referrals while also accepting lower payments. With the new fee reduction almost certain to filter down from Medicare to the HMOs the way such reductions have done in the past, it will become increasingly harder to stay level. Last year, an HMO penalized me and several other New York University physicians thousands of dollars each for what it deemed 'overcoding' -- that is, billing for longer or more comprehensive sessions than our documentation warranted. I called in a coding expert, who lectured me on the principle of better record-keeping being a sign of better doctoring and gave me an elaborate form on which to write patients' notes. Struggling with my professional identity, I try to find myself in the famed physicians' Hippocratic oath, which says, in part, 'In every house where I come I will enter only for the good of my patients, keeping myself far from all intentional ill-doing and all seduction.'

More than 20 cases have occurred among people on other atolls who acquired measles on Majuro. To stop the outbreak, health officials have undertaken a large immunization program. They have also suspended travel by sea and air from Majuro until immunization programs have been completed on other atolls and islands

More than 20 cases have occurred among people on other atolls who acquired measles on Majuro. To stop the outbreak, health officials have undertaken a large immunization program. They have also suspended travel by sea and air from Majuro until immunization programs have been completed on other atolls and islands

Dr. [Julie L. Gerberding] cautioned doctors to consider West Nile fever in patients who experienced headaches and fevers after transfusions. After transfusion-associated cases of West Nile were first identified last year, federal officials said they realized the need for a test to screen the blood. Blood banks asked donors about symptoms of recent illnesses. But the West Nile virus can be present in blood before symptoms develop or even among people who report few, if any, symptoms. In some areas where West Nile is particularly prevalent this summer, blood banks are testing each donor's blood. Those states include Kansas, Nebraska, North Dakota, Oklahoma and South Dakota, Dr. Gerberding said

A 27-year-old medical researcher who acquired a mild case of SARS while working in a laboratory has recovered and was discharged from a hospital. He will be in quarantine at home for two weeks

''Our greatest concern was that this was Lassa fever,'' said Dr. Gregory J. Martin, a Navy captain and the program director of infectious disease fellowships at Bethesda Naval Medical Center and Walter Reed Army Medical Center. Dr. Martin led the military medical team that examined the marines at Andrews Air Force Base and later cared for them at Bethesda. As of today, the malaria outbreak has affected 54 of the 625 troops who were in Liberia. The patients include three Navy corpsmen embedded with the marines. Two marines are being treated in the military's regional medical center in Landstuhl, Germany, and 11 aboard the Iwo Jima, Dr. Martin said. Dr. Gregory J. Martin led the military medical team that examined and cared for the marines ill with malaria. Thirty-one marines had become sick aboard two Navy ships, the Carter Hall and the Iwo Jima, right, after spending two weeks ashore in Liberia in August. (Photo by United States Navy/Reuters); (Photo by Marty Katz for The New York Times)

A pioneering gene researcher and the discoverers of a powerful therapy for autoimmune disorders are the winners of the 2003 Lasker awards for medical research. And [Christopher Reeve], the actor whose struggle against paralysis has given new hope to patients with severe spinal injuries, has won the Lasker public service award. Dr. Marc Feldmann and Sir Ravinder N. Maini of the Kennedy Institute of Rheumatology in London won the clinical medical research award for a discovery that led to development of powerful drugs that can soothe joint pain and restore mobility among people with rheumatoid arthritis. The therapy, known as anti-T.N.F., for tumor necrosis factor, has also benefited people with other autoimmune disorders, like the bowel ailment Crohn's disease and a form of arthritis caused by psoriasis. Dr. Feldmann, an Australian immunologist, and Sir Ravinder, who was born in India, overcame major scientific skepticism when they began their anti-T.N.F. work in 1984. It has led to the development of three licensed drugs for rheumatoid arthritis and autoimmune disorders -- Remicade, Enbrel and Humira