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.

Medicare Rules May Reduce Prescription Steering

Medicare prescription drug access

Weill Cornell Medicine researchers have found that pharmacy benefit managers (PBMs)—organizations that negotiate access to medicines for most patients in the United States—steer patients to use their own pharmacies. However, these pharmacies appear less used in Medicare than in other market segments. These PBMs are part of integrated health care conglomerates that own insurance companies and pharmacies, which may create conflicts of interest.

The study, published Jan. 10 in JAMA Health Forum, found that in 2021 a third of all Medicare Part D pharmacy spending and almost 40% of specialty drug spending within Medicare Part D was through pharmacies owned by the four largest PBMs: CVS, UnitedHealth Group, Cigna or Humana. However, this represents a far lower market share in Medicare than the nearly two-thirds national market share noted by a Federal Trade Commission’s 2024 report. The findings may help guide future policy decisions on how these entities are regulated.

Innovators Encourage Scientists and Physicians to Dive into Technology Commercialization

A Caucasian man in light purple suit facing and talking to a woman with long brunette hair and waring a blue blazer

When Dr. Tamatha Fenster received a call from a young patient requesting a refill on her Oxycodone for pelvic pain, she was faced with a dilemma: letting the patient remain in pain or refill a prescription and perpetuate an opioid dependency.

With few other pain-relief options, she refilled the prescription. “I had to think of an alternative for pelvic pain for women,” said Dr. Fenster, assistant professor of clinical obstetrics and gynecology at Weill Cornell Medicine and an obstetrician and gynecologist at NewYork-Presbyterian/Weill Cornell Medical Center. And she did just that.

Dr. Fenster, along with other researchers and physicians, recounted their technology development and commercialization journeys at the annual Dean’s Symposium on Innovation and Entrepreneurship, hosted by Enterprise Innovation Dec. 18 in Uris Auditorium. In its eighth year, the symposium celebrates innovation and Weill Cornell Medicine’s entrepreneurial spirit, while encouraging and motivating the next generation of innovators, inventors and entrepreneurs.

Diet, Microbes and Fat: A New Pathway Controlling Levels of Body Fat and Cholesterol

pink fat droplets in liver tissue with a chemical structure superimposed on it

Beneficial gut microbes and the body work together to fine-tune fat metabolism and cholesterol levels, according to a new preclinical study by investigators from Weill Cornell Medicine and the Boyce Thompson Institute at Cornell University’s Ithaca campus.

The human body has co-evolved with the beneficial microbes that live in the gut (termed the microbiota), resulting in mutually favorable relationships that aid in the digestion of food and absorption of essential nutrients required for survival of the host and the gut microbes. A central aspect of these relationships is the production of bioactive molecules that promote the breakdown of food, enabling nutrient absorption by the host. One of the most important groups of such molecules are termed bile acids (also known as ‘bile’) which are produced from cholesterol in the liver and then delivered to the intestine where they promote fat digestion.

Scientists have known for some time that gut bacteria modify bile acids into a form that stimulates a receptor called FXR, which reduces bile production. The new study, published Jan. 8 in Nature, reveals that an enzyme produced by intestinal cells converts bile acids into a different form that has the opposite effect. This altered form, called bile acid-methylcysteamine (BA–MCY), inhibits FXR to promote bile production and help boost fat metabolism.

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