Obstetrics & Gynecology

News and Events

Programs and providers of Obstetrics and Gynecology at Weill Cornell Medicine are often the focus of news stories and features appearing in major national media. We invite you to review some stories that typify the breakthrough accomplishments of our remarkable team and highlight the impact our care has had on patient’s lives.

Reminiscing May Ease Grief When Caring for Persons with Dementia

screenshots of living memory home

Caring for a family member with dementia can feel like losing a loved one who is still alive, but a new study suggests that revisiting memories together through a simple digital tool can help ease that grief and even strengthen the patient-caregiver bond. Weill Cornell Medicine and University of Southern California investigators have developed and tested the web-based platform, Living Memory Home for Dementia Care Pairs (LMH-4-DCP), in a pilot trial published April 22 in JAMA Network Open.

The researchers demonstrated that the digital platform can be a widely accessible, user-friendly support tool for caregivers, while enhancing appreciation of and respect for care recipients.

Dr. Holly Prigerson

Dr. Holly Prigerson

Scientists Uncover How the Intestine Balances Cell Growth and Maintenance

colonoic organoid

A new preclinical study from Weill Cornell Medicine found that the protein caspase-5 (CASP5), long thought to be a foot soldier in the body’s defense against bacterial infection, does not actually help clear invaders the way its close cousin caspase-4 (CASP4) does. Instead, the researchers discovered that CASP5 boosts the signal to proliferate in a population of gut cells that maintains a healthy intestinal lining and replaces injured cells with new, healthy ones.

The study, published April 22 in Nature, identifies CASP5 as a previously unrecognized “switch” that helps control tissue regeneration and maintenance. Disruptions in this system are linked to diseases like colorectal cancer and inflammatory bowel disease (IBD), which destroys the lining of the digestive tract and causes diarrhea, stomach pain and nausea.

“We’ve shown that a specific form of caspase-5 is a powerful enzymatic regulator of the Wnt signaling pathway, the master control system that tells cells when to grow and divide,” said Dr. Julie Magarian Blander, the Gladys and Roland Harriman Professor of Immunology in Medicine and a member of the Jill Roberts Institute for Research in Inflammatory Bowel Disease at Weill Cornell.

Achieving Health Equity Demands Shift to Structural Change

Dr. Joseph Wright

Advancing health equity in medicine requires a clear-eyed understanding of history, a rejection of race-based clinical assumptions and a commitment to transform research into practice, said Dr. Joseph L. Wright, senior vice president and chief health equity officer of the American Academy of Pediatrics (AAP), in his keynote address for Weill Cornell Medicine’s eight annual Diversity Week.

Dr. Wright delivered the Elizabeth A. Wilson-Anstey, EdD Lecture, “Advancing Health Equity: Why History Matters,” April 20 in Uris Auditorium as part of the institution’s commitment to greater equity, diversity and inclusion in academic medicine and health care.

Using a “roots and leaves” approach, he threaded his own family history—from enslavement to modern-day encounters with discrimination—throughout his address to emphasize how social and historical forces, especially racism, can shape health outcomes across generations. Health disparities cannot be understood without also acknowledging structural factors such as redlining, he said.

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