This collection consists of interviews with physicians and staff of the Hospitals done in conjunction with the St. Luke's-Roosevelt Hospital Center Alumni Association. The interviews were carried out starting in 2017, but some of the additional materials included with the recordings date back to the 1990s. Additional materials include a transcript of the recordings, the curriculum vitae of the narrators, and occasionally other materials they wished to include in the documentation of their careers. The St. Luke's-Roosevelt Hospital Center joined the Mount Sinai Health System in 2013 and the hospitals were renamed Mount Sinai Morningside and Mount Sinai West.
St. Luke's-Roosevelt Hospital Center Alumni AssociationThe interview topics include Dr. Turino’s childhood, college and medical school years, and the research he did after medical school (Class of 1948), in particular, his Korean War service working at the National Research Council where his team created Dextran, a substitute for plasma. He describes his fellowship experiences that started in a cardiopulmonary laboratory, to focus on cardio function, but led to studying lung function. Significant mentions include a fellowship with the NY Heart Association, and his time as an investigator for the City of New York. A collaboration with Ines Mandl, PhD, whose special interest is the elastic tissue of the body, led to investigating mechanisms of lung injury, and this lead to studying alpha-1 antitrypsin deficiency, and desmosine and isodesmosine as biomarkers in COPD.
Dr. Turino relates how he established the James P. Mara Center for Lung Disease, how he became the first John H. Keating Professor of Medicine at the St. Luke's-Roosevelt Hospital Center (SLR), and his efforts to make SLR a top tier research hospital. He discusses several of the outstanding researchers he recruited to SLR, and his work with several professional organizations. Of particular interest are his accounts of fund raising with American Lung Association and his involvement with the start of promoting asthma research, as well as his current clinical trials with the hyaluronan as a potential therapy for alpha-1 antitrypsin patients.
He touches on family life, wife and children, and their directions in life early in the interview and his recreational choices later in the conversation. Dr. Braun asks his opinion on the merger of St. Luke’s and Roosevelt Hospitals, and his vision for the future of medical science.
Significant names or topics mentioned in the interview include: Dr. André Frédéric Cournand; Dr. Dickinson W. Richard; Alfred Fishman; Karl Meyer, MD, PhD; Ines Mandl, PhD; James P. Mara Center for Lung Disease; Jahar Bhattacharya MD, DPhil; Alan Rozanski, MD; David J. Volsky, PhD; Seymour Lieberman; Yong Y. Lin, PhD; AIDS/HIV; American Thoracic Society; Shuren Ma, PhD; hyaluronan; hyaluronic acid; Jerome Cantor; Matrix Therapeutics; Medical Science Institute; Dr. Arthur J. Antenucci.
Turino, Gerard M.Theodore B. VanItallie, MD spent the bulk of his medical career as Chief of Medicine at St. Luke’s Hospital Center (1957 to 1975). Dr. VanItallie discusses his early life and influences, his medical interests and mentors; his time as Chief of Medicine and his work towards bringing St. Luke’s up to full university hospital status and a research center affiliated with Columbia University, and how these plans were thwarted, in his opinion, by Hospital administration; his opinions on the merger of St. Luke’s and Roosevelt hospitals and the more recent merger of SL-R with Mount Sinai Medical Center; and conflicts between senior and junior Attendings. During his interview Dr. VanItallie mentions John H. Keating, Sr., MD, Sami A. Hashim, MD, Henry B. Guthrie, W. Henry Sebrell, Jr., MD, F. Xavier Pi-Sunyer, MD, Gerard M. Turino, MD, Solomon A. Berson, MD, Rosalyn Yalow, PhD, Nancy Kemeny, MD. Includes extended footage of informal conversation in VanItallie's home and Drs. Braun, VanItallie, and Hashim in the garden.
Braun, Norma M.T.Dr. George E. Green is an innovator in the application of micro-suture techniques to coronary artery surgery. He is also the first American surgeon to perform a left coronary artery bypass graft using the internal thoracic artery sutured to the left anterior descending coronary artery to bypass obstruction to the heart circulation. He developed these techniques in 1968, and in 1970 brought them to St. Luke’s Hospital to establish a cardiac surgery program that by 1982 was seeing approximately 1,800 cases a year - the biggest program in the state.
Green, George E.Peter R. Holt, MD, is the physician responsible for establishing the Department of Gastroenterology at St. Luke’s Hospital, and served as its Chief from 1962-2000. In this interview he briefly mentions his childhood in Berlin, Germany and England during WWII, his decision to further his medical studies in the US, finding his way to St. Luke’s Hospital almost accidently. He discusses his fellowship at Massachusetts General Hospital in Boston, his early research, moving into gastroenterology, and his return to St. Luke’s. He touches on the general culture of St. Luke’s in the 1960s-1970s, for example encouraging nursing staff to join patient rounds, the hospital mergers under Continuum Health Partners, his eventual decision to leave St. Luke’s, and the positions he has held at the American Health Foundation, The Strang Cancer Prevention Center, and his current post at the Rockefeller University. He mentions interactions with the following colleagues: G. Jarvis Coffin, MD; Robert B. Case, MD; Richard N. Pierson, MD; John H. Keating, Sr., MD; Theodore B. VanItallie, MD; Kurt J. Isselbacher, MD; Charles A. Flood MD; Miles J. Schwartz, MD; Richard S. McCray, MD; David Chalfin, MD, PhD; Steven Mezey, MD; Stanley E. Bradley, MD; Norton Rosenzweig, MD; Steven Moss, MD; Albert Attia, MD; and Harry A. Roselle, MD.
Braun, Norma M.T.Dr. Sami Hashim discusses his education and career development, his research on lipid metabolism and its derivatives, the ketogenic diet, the development of MCT (Medium Chain Triglycerides) which today has in many nutritional and medicinal applications and his collaboration with Dr. Theodore VanItallie which produced cholestyramine, the first cholesterol lowering medication. Dr. Hashim remarks on his family life and children, his hobbies, and his acquaintances with the Royal family in Kuwait and meeting the former President of Algeria, Abdelaziz Bouteflika, photographer Alfred Eisenstaedt, Nobel Laureate Linus Pawling, IRA member Bobby Sands, and Arctic Explorer Vilhjalmur Stefansson.
Braun, Norma M.T.