News

The Department of Pediatrics is pleased to announce the appointment of Dr. Teresa Vente to Associate Professor of Clinical Pediatrics on the Pathway Recognizing Clinical Excellence effective June 1, 2025.   

Dr. Vente graduated from Touro University of Nevada College of Osteopathic Medicine and then completed her Residency in Pediatrics/Adult Psychiatry/Child & Adolescent Psychiatry at Tufts Medical Center and then a fellowship in Palliative Care and Hospice Medicine at Northwestern University McGaw Medical Center. After completing her fellowship, she joined the faculty at Northwestern in 2019 and then joined our faculty at Weill Cornell Medicine (WCM) in October of 2023 as Assistant Professor of Clinical Pediatrics.

She is an expert in pediatric palliative care, a field that is in urgent need of talent and committed experts. Dr. Vente has lectured extensively on her work regionally, nationally and internationally. She has served on regional and national committees on curriculum development for pediatric palliative care. Most of her work and speaking engagements were done during her time at Northwestern. Her work spans a variety of areas in pediatric palliative care such as for children’s rare genetic disorders, fetal medicine, children undergoing surgery and the effects of the COVID-19 pandemic on pediatric palliative care.

The Departments of Pediatrics and Cardiology are pleased to announce the recent appointment of Dr. Emina Hodzic as Assistant Professor in the Division of Pediatric Cardiology at Weill Cornell Medicine.

Dr. Hodzic brings a profound commitment to delivering compassionate, family-centered care to children with congenital and acquired heart conditions. Her clinical philosophy emphasizes empathy, clear communication, and holistic support for patients and their families throughout the continuum of care. By integrating the latest advancements in pediatric cardiology, Dr. Hodzic provides innovative, individualized treatment strategies tailored to each patient’s unique needs.

In her new role, Dr. Hodzic also serves as an attending physician at NewYork-Presbyterian/Weill Cornell Medical Center. She is board-certified in both general pediatrics and pediatric cardiology by the American Board of Pediatrics.

Dr. Hodzic earned her medical degree from the Lewis Katz School of Medicine at Temple University. She completed her residency in pediatrics at UH Rainbow Babies & Children’s Hospital and Case Western Reserve University School of Medicine, followed by a fellowship in pediatric cardiology at NYU Langone Health, NYU Grossman School of Medicine. Her clinical interests include the diagnosis and management of congenital heart disease, transthoracic echocardiography, and fetal cardiology.

As director of the Pediatric Advanced Care Team at NewYork-Presbyterian/Weill Cornell Medical Center, Dr. Jennifer Salant (M.D. ’13) and her interdisciplinary team provide support for children with serious illnesses and their families. If a child needs symptom management or other palliative therapies, she’s there. If a family needs guidance in making complex decisions about their child’s medical journey, she’s there. And if a family is grieving, she’s there, too.

Dr. Salant attributes her passion for supporting children and their families during their most critical and vulnerable moments to her experience as a medical student at Weill Cornell Medicine.

“Helping families achieve peace and dignity during some of the most difficult times is very gratifying for me,” says Dr. Salant, assistant professor of clinical pediatrics at Weill Cornell Medicine and assistant attending pediatrician at NewYork-Presbyterian Komansky Children’s Hospital. “What we do is a really beautiful facet of what can be a very serious side of medicine.”

Children are 22% of our population but they’re 100% of our future. In the latest episode of The Lead in Peds we discuss what’s at stake as federal funding for pediatric research declines.

From clinical trials to training the next generation of physician-scientists, Dr. Nathan Kupperman sits down with Dr. Catherine Bollard and Dr. Sallie Permar from Weill Cornell Medicine to discuss the urgent case for continued investment — and what we risk losing without it.

Listen now wherever you get your podcasts: https://lnkd.in/d4mipmrK

Good Medicine: New research aims to extend the power of existing vaccines  and develop even better ones in the future. 

Dr. Ria Goswami was awarded $154,000 from Open Philanthropy to study changes in the microbiome of preterm infants modulated by Cytomegalovirus infections in mothers.

Cytomegalovirus (CMV) acquired through breast milk results in severe health consequences in preterm infants. There remains a gap in knowledge on how maternal CMV infection disrupts breast milk components that are crucial drivers of infant growth outcomes. We were awarded this funding to define the impact of CMV-induced changes in breast milk microbiome and milk metabolome on gut microbial colonization and growth outcomes of preterm infants. This data will lay the foundation for future studies to assess the impact of targeted breast milk fortification to improve growth outcomes of postnatally CMV-exposed preterm infants.

The Weill Cornell Medicine Department of Pediatrics and the Drukier Institute for Children’s Health hosted the fourth annual Pediatric Research Day to highlight research conducted by faculty, fellows, residents, graduate students, postdocs, medical students, and other researchers working in the Department of Pediatrics or collaborating departments and institutions. All fellows and senior residents are present their scholarly work during this event.

This event celebrated the depth and breadth of the research performed in the Department and Institute, fosters collaborations across research teams and between faculty and trainees, and is a wonderful demonstration that research contributes personally and collectively towards the goal of advancing care for children. Additionally, the event aimed to foster mentoring and networking relationships across career levels and between the College and affiliated institutions.

The day consisted of four sessions throughout the day. Posters categories were divided into (1) basic science, (2) translational research, (3) clinical research, and (4) education, health services, healthcare policy, quality improvement, and others. Posters were judged by a panel of experts in their respective fields, and an award for outstanding poster was presented for each category.

During the early months of the COVID-19 pandemic, Dr. Alexandra Huttle, Assistant Professor of Clinical Pediatrics in the Department of Pediatrics and an Instructor in Medicine in the Weill Department of Medicine, saw a striking number of her young patients presenting suicidal ideation (SI), notably three cases of recent suicide attempts (SA) by children under the age of 12 in a single week. Dr. Huttle was halfway through her pediatrics residency at NewYork-Presbyterian/Weill Cornell Medical Center.

You're pregnant, healthy and hearing mixed messages: Health and Human Services Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr., removed the COVID vaccine from the list of vaccinations you should get.

In addition to changing how the immune system works, being pregnant also makes women five times more likely to have blood clots. That risk is increased if they contract COVID said Sallie Permar, Chair of Pediatrics at Weill Cornell Medicine. 

Read full article here!

The Department of Pediatrics is pleased to announce the appointment of Dr. Katharina Graw-Panzer to Associate Professor of Clinical Pediatrics on the pathway recognizing Clinical Excellence effective May 1, 2025.  

Dr. Graw-Panzer graduated from the University of Hamburg, Germany, in 2000. She completed her Pediatrics Residency and Fellowships in Pediatric Pulmonology and Sleep Medicine at Downstate Medical Center in Brooklyn in 2007. In 2008, she was appointed Assistant Professor at the State University of New York College of Medicine, Downstate Medical Center. From 2010 to 2012, she worked as a pediatric pulmonologist at the Wilhelminenspital in Vienna, Austria and in private practice in Berlin, Germany. She joined the Children’s Hospital at Montefiore, Albert Einstein College of Medicine, as an Assistant Professor of Pediatrics in 2013, before transitioning to Weill Cornell Medicine as an Assistant Professor in September 2018.

Dr. Graw-Panzer serves as the Director of the Pediatric Sleep Program at NewYork-Presbyterian/Weill Cornell and Columbia University. Under her leadership, this has become the largest Pediatric Sleep Program in New York City. She is one of the few clinical leaders whose program spans the entire NewYork-Presbyterian system, and therefore will be a pioneer in the newly announced framework of the Children’s Hospital of New York.

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