A Message from the Dean of the School of Medicine – Summer 2019

Outstanding leadership is a hallmark of the excellence that is Stony Brook Medicine.
We recently honored one of our nationally renowned leaders as the newly endowed chair for biomedical informatics, Joel Saltz, MD, who will serve as the inaugural Cherith Foundation Chair in Biomedical Informatics at the Renaissance School of Medicine at Stony Brook University.
We also honored an emerging leader at Stony Brook Medicine, Il Memming Park, PhD, Assistant Professor in the Department of Neurobiology and Behavior, who received $200,000 as winner of the prestigious 2019 Discovery Prize competition to fund his research using neurotechnologies and machine learning methods to better understand the brain trapped in unconscious states.
Another outstanding leader at Stony Brook Medicine is Lauren Maloney, MD, Chief Resident in the Department of Emergency Medicine, who recently received two national Emergency Medicine awards at the Society of Academic Emergency Medicine (SAEM) Annual Conference. And Aurora Pryor, MD, has been elected to a national leadership role as President of the Society of American Gastrointestinal and Endoscopic Surgeons (SAGES). Rory currently serves as the Vice Chair for Clinical Affairs in the Department of Surgery, as well as the Division Chief of Bariatric, Foregut and Advanced Gastrointestinal (GI) Surgery, and Director of the Bariatric and Metabolic Weight Loss Center. She is also Director of the Minimally Invasive and Bariatric Surgery Fellowship.
Excellent leaders create excellent outcomes, and Stony Brook University Hospital was recognized for its clinical excellence as one of “America’s 100 Best Hospitals™” for 2019 by Healthgrades, the first organization in the country to rate hospitals entirely on the basis of the quality of clinical outcomes in 34 common conditions that lead to hospitalization.
As one of America’s 100 Best Hospitals™, Stony Brook University Hospital is in the top 2 percent of hospitals nationwide and one of only four hospitals in New York State exhibiting exemplary clinical excellence over the most recent three-year evaluation period. Stony Brook was also named one of America’s 100 Best Hospitals for cardiac care, coronary intervention and stroke care. I’m proud to report that our hospital is the only one in the entire U.S. northeast region, and one of only two hospitals in the nation, to achieve America’s 100 Best designation in all four categories.
I’m also pleased to report that Renaissance School of Medicine ranked #56 (tie) in the latest U.S. News and World Report rankings of Research Medical Schools, a step above last year’s ranking. Stony Brook’s highest ranked graduate program is the Physician Assistant Program in the Stony Brook University School of Health Technology and Management, #15 in the current rankings. The Stony Brook University School of Social Welfare rose eight places, from #59 to #51 on the current list.
High rankings and ratings are the byproduct of academic and clinical excellence, and this issue of Medicine Today contains several stories of outstanding care, including the kidney transplant procedure performed on former New York Met Ed Kranepool by Frank Darras, MD, Medical Director, Renal Transplantation, and Wayne Waltzer, MD, Director, Renal Transplantation, and Chair, Department of Urology. Stony Brook’s kidney transplant program was the first on Long Island and is still the only program in Suffolk County.
Outstanding clinical care extends well beyond the four walls of Stony Brook University Hospital with our new Mobile Stroke Unit Program. These Mobile Stroke Units have been called “rolling emergency rooms” — and with good reason. They will serve as vital extensions of stroke care, reaching patients earlier and saving more lives during the critical “golden hour” of stroke treatment. We are proud to be home to Suffolk County’s first comprehensive Stroke Center – the highest level of stroke care possible –which provides the expertise needed to diagnose and treat a wide range of cerebrovascular diseases.
These are just a few highlights of this edition of Medicine Today. As Long Island’s premier academic medical center, we are pleased to share these stories and more with you.
Sincerely,
Kenneth Kaushansky, MD
Senior Vice President, Health Sciences
Dean, Renaissance School of Medicine
Stony Brook University