Dr. Joseph J. Fins has been elected president of the American Society for Bioethics and Humanities (ASBH) in recognition of his major contributions to bioethics and broad expertise in the field. He will assume the presidency in 2011, when he will begin a two-year term. Dr. Fins is chief of the Division of Medical Ethics in the Departments of Public Health and Medicine and professor of medicine, professor of public health and professor of medicine in psychiatry at Weill Cornell Medical College. He is also director of medical ethics at NewYork-Presbyterian Hospital/Weill Cornell Medical Center and chairs its ethics committee.

The risk for heart-related death is increasing in young adults ages 35 to 54, and the numbers are even more alarming for younger women. It is the number-one cause of death for both men and women in the United States, yet every year since 1984 more women have died of cardiovascular health problems than men, according to the American Heart Association.

With summer fading, anxiety is on the rise for some students anticipating the return of school. But it isn't just the first days of classes that can provoke angst -- anxiety in school is seasonal and age dependent, say pediatric psychiatrists.

A leader in advancing new surgical treatments for congenital heart defects, Dr. Emile Bacha has joined the pediatric cardiac surgery team at NewYork-Presbyterian/Morgan Stanley Children's Hospital. He has been appointed as director of congenital and pediatric cardiac surgery at NewYork-Presbyterian/Morgan Stanley Children's Hospital and professor of surgery at Columbia University College of Physicians and Surgeons.

Kevin Hammeran has been appointed senior vice president and chief operating officer of NewYork-Presbyterian/Morgan Stanley Children's Hospital and the Sloane Hospital for Women at NewYork-Presbyterian Hospital/Columbia University Medical Center.

Dr. Francesco Rubino, chief of gastrointestinal metabolic surgery at NewYork-Presbyterian Hospital/Weill Cornell Medical Center, is now enrolling overweight and mildly obese patients -- those with a body mass index (BMI) of 28 to 35 -- in a study of gastric bypass surgery aimed at reversing Type 2 diabetes. Because of their non-morbidly obese status, these patients do not qualify for the surgery under current guidelines. Today, gastric bypass, along with other bariatric procedures, can only be prescribed for patients with a BMI of 35 and over.

Two young physician-scientists in the Division of Cardiology at Weill Cornell Medical College each won a highly competitive award presented at the recent 2001 American Heart Association meeting in Anaheim.

One of the 40 national finalists in this year’s Intel Science Talent Search contest is Dmitriy Aronov, a Stuyvesant High School student who pursued his project in the lab of Dr. Jonathan D. Victor, a Professor of Neurology and Neuroscience at Weill Cornell Medical College and an authority on mathematical approaches to vision and neuroscience.