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Collection of Upstate news and information in Physicians Practice magazine

coverofppdHere are some of the news items about Upstate that are included in the January issue of Physicians Practice magazine. Click the magazine at left to view the digital issue.

Several construction projects that are in the works at Upstate University Hospital will allow patients to be better served.

An adolescent inpatient psychiatry unit is being established on 7 West. Hospital chief executive officer John McCabe, MD, says it will be “a small unit, but one that this community sorely needs for adolescent psychiatric patients.”

The pediatric emergency department will move to a wing on 4 North, allowing for expansion of the department in space devoted to patients up to age 19. Patients still will arrive through the main emergency room.

Also, planning is underway for a renovated post-partum unit at Upstate‘s Community campus.

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Stroke experts at Upstate are linking electronically through telemedicine with outlying hospitals including Carthage Area Hospital, so that patients who arrive at rural hospitals with signs or symptoms of stroke can be evaluated rapidly.

Upstate‘s stroke neurologists will be able to hear and see patients through the state-of-the-art equipment.

“We‘re delighted to partner with Carthage Area Hospital in bringing advanced stroke treatment and are to residents of the north country,” hospital chief executive officer John McCabe, MD, told the Watertown Daily Times. “Upstate‘s mission, as the area‘s only academic medical center, is to collaborate on projects just like this and to be a resource for medical professionals throughout the state.”

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Researchers from Upstate and the U.S. Army Medical Research and Material Command are developing a dengue virus vaccine and seek healthy adults between the ages of 18 and 45 as volunteers for an FDA-regulated clinical trial.

Leading the study at Upstate are dengue experts Timothy Endy, MD, MPH, and Mark Polhemus, MD. Reach them at the Center for Global Health & Translational Science at 315-459-3031 or by email at trials@upstate.edu

Study volunteers will receive injections of one of four attenuated dengue live virus challenge strains that were manufactured by the Army and approved for use in this trial by the FDA. The goal is to stimulate the human body to produce a dengue immune response for each of the four strains of dengue.

Volunteers will be paid for their participation.

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An international organization that serves patients with an inherited disorder, called von Hipplel-Lindau or VHL, has designated Upstate as a VHL Clinical Care Center. Upstate is one of several centers in the United States and the only one in New York state, outside of New York City, to earn this designation.

VHL causes benign and malignant tumors affecting the brain and other parts of the body. The most common tumors are retinal and central nervous system haemangioblastomas, renal cell carcinoma, renal cysts and phaeochromocytomas.

As a designated Clinical Care Center, Upstate provides significant patient and physician support and also ensures appropriate screenings, according to guidelines offered by the VHL Alliance Clinical Advisory Council. Such screenings are recommended as early as 1 year old for those at risk of VHL.

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Upstate is one of six universities in the state to earn the designation of “StormReady” after participating in training through the National Weather Service.

“The Syracuse area has a long history of severe weather, snowstorms, floods and even a few tornadoes,” warning coordination meteorologist David Nicosia said. “Upstate has taken all the necessary steps to be better prepared for whatever Mother Nature has in store. These efforts will no doubt make the university safer and could save lives in the future.”

To obtain the designation, 20 Upstate employees completed weather-spotter training sessions. In addition, Upstate must maintain a 24-hour warning point and emergency operations center, have more than one way to receive warnings from the NWS and alert the public, have the ability to monitor local weather and flood conditions, conduct routine preparedness programs, and ensure that hazardous weather and flooding are addressed in Upstate‘s formal emergency management plans.

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All Syracuse Housing Authority properties are smoke-free, as of Nov. 19, the Great American Smokeout. Upstate has provided SHA residents with smoking cessation classes.

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Robert Swan, MD

Robert Swan, MD


Robert Swan, MD, has joined Upstate as assistant professor of ophthalmology, specializing in pediatric and adult uveitis/ocular inflammatory disease. He also serves as the quality officer for the Department of Ophthalmology.

Prior to joining Upstate, Swan was an attending ophthalmologist at Mary Imogene Bassett Hospital in Cooperstown.

He received his medical degree from Upstate Medical University in 2008, graduating cum laude and in the top 5 percent of his class. He completed his internship at Mary Imogene Bassett Hospital in 2009; an ophthalmology residency at Albany Medical Center in 2012; and a clinical uveitis fellowship with C. Stephen Foster, MD, at Massachusetts Eye Research and Surgery Institute in 2015.

Swan is accepting patients: 315-464-5253.

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Matthew Mason, MD

Matthew Mason, MD


Three new urologists have joined the Upstate team as assistant professors of urology.

Matthew Mason, MD, takes care of pediatric patients with urologic issues, including bladder infections, hydrocele, enuresis and more.

He‘s an Upstate graduate, from 2008, who completed residency at the University of Virginia and a fellowship at Vanderbilt University. Patients can seek appointments by calling 315-464-6060.

Natasha Ginzburg, MD

Natasha Ginzburg, MD


Natasha Ginzburg, MD, specializes in female pelvic medicine and reconstructive surgery.

Her medical degree is from Drexel University College of Medicine in Philadelphia, where she also completed a fellowship after her residency at Albert Einstein School of Medicine in the Bronx.

Ryan Sidebottom, DO, received his medical degree from the Texas College of Osteopathic Medicine.

Ryan Sidebottom, DO

Ryan Sidebottom, DO


He was chief resident in urologic surgery at the Albert Einstein Medical Center in Philadelphia.

For appointments with Ginzburg or Sidebottom, call 315-464-1500.

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A new anesthesiologist at Upstate offers surgical patients a new approach to pain management.

Lucien Catania, MD, specializes in performing nerve blocks for surgical anesthesia and pain control. He offers paravertebral nerve blocks, lumbar plexus blocks and sacral plexus blocks.

Lucien Catania, MD

Lucien Catania, MD


aravertebral nerve blocks involve the injection of local anesthetic in a space adjacent to where the spinal nerves emerge within the back. It‘s a new modality at Upstate‘s Community campus, “and there is good data to support the benefits it affords patients,” Catania says. “This method does not require entering the spine, and thus avoids many of the risks and potential complications associated with entering the spine with an epidural block.”

Catania graduated from Downstate Medical Center in 1998 before completing an internship at St. Joseph‘s Family Practice Program and then a residency at Upstate. He did a fellowship at the University of Pittsburgh Medical Center.
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