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Mount Sinai
A Commitment to Global Health
The world is more densely populated, urbanized, and interconnected than ever before. In understaffed city hospitals and rural clinics throughout Africa, Asia, and Latin America, health care workers are encountering increasing rates of obesity, diabetes, lung cancer, and heart disease in their patient populations. These conditions once affected mostly people in industrialized countries. Now they are more prevalent in developing nations that are also battling infectious diseases such as AIDS, malaria, pneumonia, and tuberculosis. Mount Sinai Global Health, which unifies The Mount Sinai Medical Centers many international missions and programsas well as efforts in underserved U.S. communitiesis addressing these challenges through research, training, and clinical practice. With Mount Sinais innovative thinking and intellectual rigor, we are maximizing human and technological resources, and giving equal weight to the demands of the present and the predicted needs of the future. Philip J. Landrigan, MD, MSc
These women were among millions of people who gathered recently in Sirsa, India, for a one-week celebration and meditation camp. Mount Sinai physicians performed thousands of cardiovascular screenings at the event (see story below). Dr. Landrigan is Dean for Global Health, Ethel H. Wise Professor and Chairman, Department of Preventive Medicine, Professor of Pediatrics, Director, Childrens Environmental Health Center, Mount Sinai School of Medicine.
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Bringing Safe, Sustainable Health Care to Women in Guatemala In Colombia, Children Learn about Heart Health Improving Quality of Life on the Spirit Lake Tribe Reservation Building a Strong Health Care System in Haiti Mount Sinais Global Reach
Promoting cardiovascular health throughout the world is a priority for physicians at Mount Sinai Heart, led by Valentin Fuster, MD, PhD, Physicianin-Chief of The Mount Sinai Medical Center. They see the expanding spectrum of cardiovascular diseases increasingly affect low-and-middleincome countries. How do we reach the millions of people in remote areas of the world who are as likely to be affected by cardiovascular disease as those in high-income countries? Jagat Narula, MD, PhD, Associate Dean for Global Health, and Editor-in-Chief of Global Heart, the journal of the World Heart Federation, asks rhetorically. How do we reach the masses? For one day in January, Dr. Narula, the Philip J. and Harriet L. Goodhart Professor of Medicine (Cardiology), and Director of the Cardiovascular Imaging Program at Mount Sinai Heart, was able to do so. Through a program he co-founded, known as HAPPY (Heart Attack Prevention Program for You), Dr. Narula reached out to thousands of individuals who had converged in Sirsa, a remote area of India, for a one-week meditation
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Mount Sinais Partho P. Sengupta, MBBS, MD, DM, screens a patient in Sirsa, India.
Mount Sinai residents provided Guatemalan birth attendants with birth kits that contain necessities such as soap, gloves, clean sheets, and pictorial instructions for delivery.
in cooperation with a nongovernmental organization (NGO) called Saving Mothers. Local birth attendants have no formal training; theyre unequipped for lifethreatening complications such as postpartum hemorrhage and eclampsia, a convulsive condition that often follows pregnancy-induced hypertension. The Mount Sinai teams train birth attendants in critical practices such as clean and safe delivery, shoulder dystocia, and appropriate and timely referral in cases of emergency. The local hospital staff also receives training in appropriate administration of medications through a best-practices protocol manual. When Mount Sinais teams noticed the absence of even the most basic resources
for a clean, safe delivery, they began distributing birth kits with soap, gloves, clean sheets, blankets, and baby hats, along with simple, pictorial instructions for delivery. In May, they will begin distributing hemorrhage kits to the Guatemalan birth attendants to stem post-partum hemorrhage, the leading cause of maternal death. Mount Sinai prepares its physicians for responsible global citizenship, says Dr. Shirazian. They become better physicians when they can educate women from diverse backgrounds. Only through culturally sensitive collaboration can we hope to make any sustainable impact on global womens health.
camp. The Reverend Gurmeet Ram Rahim Singh Ji Insan, a spiritual leader whom they had come to hear, relayed a message from Dr. Narula on the importance of eating well, exercising, and not smoking. Over a 24-hour period, Dr. Narula led a health care team that screened 4,684 patients for blood pressure, glucose, and cholesterol, and performed carotid ultrasounds for more than 650 at-risk patients. The record-breaking feat was recognized by editors at Guinness World Records. The event also included an initiative led by Partho P. Sengupta, MBBS, MD, DM, Associate Professor of Medicine (Cardiology), and Director of Ultrasound Research at Mount Sinai Heart. Dr. Sengupta mobilized 75 cardiologists and sonographers from medical institutions around the world, including the United States, Australia, and Bulgaria, who volunteered to read echocardiograms that were sent via cloud
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We have to promote health and stop talking about disease. Young children learn what you teach them. And children impact the behavior of their parents.
VALENTIN FUSTER, MD, PHD
Dr. Fuster and his team have been examining ways to prevent the spread of cardiovascular disease (CVD) in both developed and developing countries as lifestyles become more sedentary, and high-fat, high-carbohydrate diets become the norm. In Bogot, CVD has become the leading cause of death, according to an assessment of seven Latin American cities that appeared in The American Journal of Medicine. The Mount Sinai team says their encouraging results in Bogot, using popular characters from Sesame Workshop, can be replicated
Pre-schoolers in Colombia perform for their peers, singing and dancing about the importance of exercising and maintaining a healthy diet.
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