Don Hoffman, a representative at Beth Israel, says the new Teladoc feature is the first “virtual doctor’s office” in the city, though there are similar programs popping up all over the nation.
This innovation comes just in time for the flu season. Doctors encourage people with flu-like symptoms not to wait to go to a doctor. Hoffman says that this eliminates waiting at a hospital or doctor’s office, and will hopefully encourage more people to get treatment during this especially dangerous flu season.

THREE LOYOLA STUDENTS GO TO NEXT ROUND OF MLK ART CONTEST
The Metropolitan Museum of Art will be hosting a Dream@50 art contest award ceremony on Jan. 26 in honor of the 50th anniversary of Martin Luther King Jr.’s “I Have a Dream” speech. Three students from Loyola School on East. 83rd Street have been selected as semifinalists in the contest: Lova Blavarg, Nicole DiTolla and Stephie Brack.

The Dream@50 contest is a nationwide art contest for K-12 students in 10 U.S. cities including New York, Boston and Los Angeles. Grand-prize winners from each city will be honored at a Capitol Hill ceremony and exhibit in August.

CONSTRUCTION BEGINS ON NEW MET MUSEUM PLAZA
Government officials broke ground on Monday, Jan. 14, for the new David H. Koch Plaza at the Metropolitan Museum of Art. The plaza is set to open next January.

The plaza will run along Fifth Avenue from 80th to 84th streets and will be named after the billionaire trustee who donated the money for the project. The plaza will feature new fountains, approximately 100 new trees, seating areas and energy-efficient nighttime lighting. The whole plaza will be environmentally friendly.

“It will give the Met a portal outside that is truly worthy of the masterpieces that grace our galleries inside,” Museum Chairman Daniel Brodsky said.

WINTER RESTAURANT WEEK BEGINS
Restaurant Week (really three weeks) kicked off on Monday, Jan. 14. Hungry customers can choose from a wide array of NYC’s best restaurants and eat a three-course gourmet dinner for just $38 per person ($25 for lunch). The deals end Feb. 8. Hungry Upper East Siders who want to stay in their neighborhood can choose from restaurants like David Burke Townhouse (61st and Lexington Avenue) and Park Avenue Winter (63rd and Park Avenue).

17TH PRECINCT COMMUNITY COUNCIL MEETING SET
Residents of Sutton Place, Turtle Bay, Beekman Place, Tudor City and Murray Hill are invited to the monthly Precinct Community Council meeting to discuss safety issues in the neighborhood on Jan. 29 at 6 p.m. The meeting will take place at Sutton Synagogue at 221 E. 51st St.

FATAL FLATIRON DISTRICT BICYCLE ACCIDENT
A female bicyclist was fatally struck Jan. 4 by a Citywide demolition and rubbish removal truck at East 23rd Street and Madison. The bicyclist was traveling East on 23rd Street when she was hit, according to several sources. Police said that she was pronounced dead on the scene.
Private sanitation trucks like Citywide Demolition actually have the highest pedestrian kill-rate of any truck vehicle according to a 1999 study produced by Right of Way. However, city law states that large trucks like these sanitation trucks must have safety convex mirrors on trucks that allows them to see in blind spots. On its website, Citywide Demolition emphasizes the company’s “safe, reliable service.”

This pedestrian death is especially relevant in the wake of the city’s fight to increase bike lanes across Manhattan.

LULEMON TEMPORARY STORE APPEARS ON 3RD AVENUE
Lululemon Athletica, a popular Canadian yoga and sports apparel store, will be opening a small pop-up for four months across the street from its flagship store on Third Avenue between 66th and 67th Streets.

The flagship store will remain closed for renovations during this time. But with the new pop-up, Upper East Siders will be able to stay in shape in style.

“Exercising and staying in good shape are inherent to the character of the Upper East Side lifestyle,” says Joseph Aquino, executive vice president of Douglas Elliman’s Retail Group that handled the transaction. “This brand resonates with people here.”

The temporary shop is replacing a Uniqlo store.

MIDTOWN LIBRARY SET FOR MAJOR RENOVATIONS
The New York Public Library’s main branch is getting a very expensive makeover. The work will begin this summer in a renovation worth $300 million. The project will create a multi-level atrium complete with views of Bryant Park inside the Fifth Avenue landmark.
The plan stirred up some controversy when it was initially proposed that mil

Dr. John Andrilli Consults with Denis Tejada, RN

by David Gibbons

For many observers, the closing of St. Vincent’s Hospital—one of the oldest community hospitals in the nation and a New York City icon throughout the 20th century—was a disaster, a disgrace, a moral failure, an avoidable tragedy. After its demise at the end of April 2010, professionals in other downtown medical centers noted a surge in ER visits and ambulance runs. Now, just over two years later, the question is: Have the others been able to fill the gap?
The two major area players are Beth Israel Medical Center, part of Continuum Health Partners (CHP), and the North Shore-LIJ Health System. Beth Israel had already doubled the size of its emergency room after the closing of Cabrini Medical Center in 2008, so it was well prepared for the St. Vincent’s surge; other local hospitals also expanded and adapted to pick up the slack. Meanwhile, both CHP and North Shore-LIJ, as well as several independent partnerships of doctors, have begun to offer more options for urgent care.
In March, 2011, North Shore-LIJ partnered with VillageCare to open an urgent care center at 121A W. 20th St. Around the same time, North Shore-LIJ announced its trump card; plan to convert the O’Toole Building—the white wedding cake-like landmark on 7th Avenue between 12th and 13th streets that was part of the St. Vincent’s complex—into “the first stand-alone emergency and ambulatory facility in the New York City metropolitan area.”
“We developed what we felt was a realistic proposal to restore comprehensive health care to the West Side,” said Terry Lynam, a North Shore-LIJ spokesperson. “We’re investing $110 million to build a true community resource that will go a long way toward giving people access to health care that has been lacking since the closing of St. Vincent’s.” It is scheduled to open as The Lenox Hill Hospital Center for Comprehensive Care in early 2014.
“North Shore is doing a commendable job trying to rebuild some services,” said Dr. Fred Hyde, clinical professor at Columbia University’s Mailman School of Public Health and an expert on management and policy. “Still, the closing of a hospital is irrelevant to the utility of urgent care centers, since hospitals were never much good at outpatient care in the first place. Urgent care is a substitute for available primary care physicians, of which we may have too few—local, state and national.”
Hyde estimates that an individual physician, depending on how “muscular” a schedule he or she is willing to tackle, can serve a primary care base of
2,000 to 2,500 patients. These figures, together with a projection from the Urgent Care Association of America of one clinic per every 40- to 50,000 people, suggest that roughly 50 hardworking doctors staffing urgent care clinics in an area the size of southern Manhattan
could have a significant impact.
“If St. Vincent’s was like a lot of hospitals, it had an ER half-full of non-emergency patients who could have been treated in an urgent care clinic,” said Lou Ellen Horwitz, the Urgent Care Association’s executive director. “So while urgent care can’t replace hospital beds, it can create access for a lot of patients who would have gone to an ER.”
CHP’s strategy is to build neighborhood primary and specialty care practices that accept walk-ins, one of the many ways it strives to meet the needs
of the community, according to spokesman Jim Mandler. Marked by their familiar awnings with the blue Beth Israel logo, they are currently located in the West Village (222 W. 14th St.), Chelsea (202 W. 23rd St.) and lower Midtown (55 E. 34th St.).
The Chelsea practice is expanding and will relocate to the northwest corner of 23rd Street and 8th Avenue on Sept. 1 with 12,000 square feet of space on two floors.
Tom Poole, vice president of Continuum Medical Groups, who oversees development and operation of CHP’s community medical centers around
Manhattan, calls it “our newly renovated state-of-the art facility for walk-in primary and specialty care, one-stop shopping sorely needed to serve Chelsea and Penn South,” a neighborhood development with a large elderly population.
In November, Continuum will open another new Beth Israel facility on 8th Street in the West Village, able to handle 36,000 patient visits per year at full capacity.
“Our model for the future is easy, open access,” said Poole. “We’ve found this is what patients increasingly expect; they don’t want to wait six weeks to see their doctor. We aim to treat patients who need immediate or urgent care and create an environment that provides a satisfactory experience for everybody. To put it simply: We want happy patients, happy physicians and happy staff.”
“We’re able to see this with our practice on 14th Street, and we hope it will continue with the new locations on 23rd and 8th streets,” Mandler added. Poole says he feels a year from now will be a good time to re-evaluate the success of this new model; he also expects the increasing demand for urgent care to grow hand in hand with new housing development along the West Side.
(For more information on Beth Israel’s practices, visit www.bethisraelmedicalgroup.com or www.wehealny.org.)
At CityMD (www.citymd.net), they are equally bullish: “From our perspective, we see a major need for quality urgent care throughout the city and
particularly in the downtown area,” said COO Dr. Nedal Shami, adding that business is good. The company opened its new Flatiron branch at 37 W. 23rd St. on May 8 of this year, has another scheduled to open on 67th Street in the fall and is actively seeking a location in Tribeca or the Financial District for the near future.
Other private partnership practices along the lines of Beth Israel’s primary care walk-ins are opening up, among them the One Medical Group (www.
onemedical.com), which has five locations, including in the West Village, at 408 W. 14th St., and the Wall Street area, at 30 Broad St.
Additional urgent care options in Manhattan’s Lower West Side include New York Doctors Urgent Care, 65 W. 13th St.; Emergency Medical Care, 200 Chambers St. (www.emcny.com), and Medhattan Immediate Medical Care, 106 Liberty St. (www.medhattan.com).
According to rules of thumb and guesstimates from several experts, it appears that southern Manhattan’s urgent care needs are being addressed, and that the closing of St. Vincent’s, in the cold light of history, may one day be considered more of a transition than a
debacle.

Today’ Host Raises Funds for Breast Cancer

Last week, Today show co-host and breast cancer survivor Hoda Kotb delivered the keynote address at Beth Israel Medical Center and St. Luke’s and Roosevelt Hospital’s Breast Service Luncheon at the Pierre Hotel on the Upper East Side. Her speech was followed by an exclusive fashion show by designer Zang Toi. The event, now in its 21st year, raised $600,000 to benefit breast cancer programs.

Proceeds from the luncheon, which was chaired by Continuum trustee Betty Yarmon and hosted 500 socially prominent women and men, will benefit the Appel-Venet Comprehensive Breast Center at Beth Israel Medical Center and the Comprehensive Breast Center at St. Luke’s and Roosevelt Hospitals. These programs provide diagnosis and treatment, educational programs, screenings, genetic counseling, clinical research, support groups and wellness programs for thousands of women and their families.

UES Recycling Event

Upper Green Side is holding a recycling event Saturday, April 28, from 10 a.m.–3 p.m. at St. Catherine’s Park, 1st Avenue between 67th and 68th streets. They will be accepting electronics (including computers and related accessories and equipment, TVs, DVD players, video games, cell phones and other devices but not appliances, such as toasters, etc.) paper and clothes of all kinds.

Winners of East River Design Competition

CIVITAS NYC, an Upper East Side community urban planning group, recently chose the first, second and third place winners in a competition that challenged designers and planners to envision ways to revitalize the waterfront of the Upper East Side. They reviewed over 90 submissions from more than 25 different countries.

“The area we are looking at is the waterfront park esplanade on the East River from 60th to 120th Street,” said Hunter Armstrong, executive director of CIVITAS. “A lot of people want to see the waterfront on par with downtown and the Upper West Side.”

Although the neighborhood was recently outfitted with a new bridge at 78th Street and has a project in the works for the nearby 91st Street esplanade, Armstrong pointed out that most of the waterfront greenway of the Upper East Side in these areas is falling apart and slowly crumbling into the river.

The competition, which was co-sponsored by Community Board 8, was opened to designers from all over the world in the fall of 2010. While the contest is designed to open a forum for discussion on what can be done to improve the waterfront, there have been no plans thus far by the city or the Parks Department to take up the project.

The first place winner was Joseph Wood, a designer from Hopewell, N.J. His elaborate design called for an underground river of rainwater that would span the distance between 60th and 120th Street. The river would nourish a park on the esplanade above it and provide a way to send rainwater into the East River.

His design also calls for adding several new bridges to the waterfront spanning over the FDR Drive. For his visionary outlook on handling revitalization and water management, Wood was awarded $5,000 by CIVITAS and will have his work displayed at the Re-imagining the Waterfront exhibition at the Museum of the City of New York beginning June 6.

Armstrong hopes that when the exhibition is put on display at the museum, contractors will take notice of the designs and perhaps put a request in to bring one of the ideas to life.

Healthy Kids Day

The Vanderbilt YMCA is hosting its annual Healthy Kids Day this Saturday, April 28, from 10 a.m.–4 p.m. There will be activities for kids and adults, including a bounce house, carnival games, art projects and a family concert with Rolie Polie Guacamole at 11 a.m. The programs are designed to encourage kids to stay active and healthy as summer vacation approaches. The event will take place at the Dag Hammarskjold Plaza, on East 47th Street between 1st and 2nd avenues. All events are free.

New UES Landmark

Last week, the Landmarks Preservation Commission (LPC) officially designated the former Barbizon Hotel for Women building, at 140 E. 63rd St., as the Upper East Side’s newest landmark. The 23-story hotel, constructed in 1927-1928 and designed by architects Murgatroyd & Ogden, became famous in its heyday as a respectable place for single women in the city to find lodging.

The LPC recognized and praised the building for its “masterful handling of its eclectic mixture of North Italian Romanesque, Gothic, and Renaissance ornament.” It was built with studio and rehearsal spaces specifically to attract women in artistic fields, and over the decades many talented and soon-to-be famous women—from comedian Elaine Stritch and actress Candice Bergen to writers Eudora Welty and Sylvia Plath, who fictionalized the place in her novel, The Bell Jar— stayed there. Many women who came to the city for modeling careers or as art students filled the hotel, which was strictly monitored for the presence of men and enforced dress codes and curfews on its young residents.

The Barbizon changed hands several times and was converted to condominiums in 2005, but the LPC determined that it retained enough of its architectural glory—and fascinating New York City history—to be worthy of designation as the 127th individual landmark on the Upper East Side.

Neighborhood Meeting

The East 79th Street Neighborhood Association will be holding its next monthly meeting on Thursday, May 10 at 6 p.m. Officers from the 19th Precinct will report on neighborhood safety concerns, and guest speakers from the group Residents for Sane Trash Solutions, which was formed in opposition to the East. 91st Street Marine Transfer Station, will present information. Representatives from local elected officials will also give updates. At the City University of New York, 535 E. 80th St.

HOSPITAL APPOINTS LGBT HEALTH LEADER
Beth Israel Medical Center announced this week the appointment of nationally recognized LGBT health expert Barbara E.Warren, PsyD, as director of its newly established LGBT Health Services program.
Warren will work to develop partnerships between the hospital and local LGBT organizations and continue to advance Beth Israel’s nationally recognized efforts to meet the health care needs of New York’s LGBT community in a respectful and compassionate environment.
“Beth Israel Medical Center has embraced a unique opportunity to lead the way in establishing and sustaining LGBT affirmative hospital-based and outpatient care,” Warren said in a statement.
Warren served most recently for two years as director of the Center for LGBT Social Services and Public Policy at Hunter College. Prior to that she served for almost 20 years in progressively responsible positions at the LGBT Community Center in the West Village, the last seven as director of government relations, planning and research. She also consults on a number of federal, state and citywide initiatives to eliminate LGBT health disparities and to establish health equity throughout the health care system.
One of Warren’s principal assignments in her new position at Beth Israel will be to develop and implement ongoing, in-house educational programs to ensure that the hospital staff is attuned to the particular health care needs of the LGBT community.

UES RAPIST SENTENCED TO 22 YEARS IN PRISON
Kentrel Whitaker, 33, was sentenced this week for the assault and attempted rape of a 73-year-old woman on the Upper East Side. Whitaker attacked the victim last summer as she was walking on the East River promenade near East 111th Street at 6:40 a.m. He approached her from behind, threw her to the ground and hit her repeatedly before attempting to rape her. A passerby helped tear Whitaker away from his victim, but police were still able to collect DNA evidence they used to achieve a conviction. Whitaker was sentenced to 22 years in prison, followed by 15 years of post-release supervision.

ST. PATRICK’S DAY AT CARNEGIE HALL
This Saturday, March 17, Carnegie Hall will host a St. Patrick’s Day concert featuring Irish band The Chieftains with Paddy Moloney accompanied by folk-rock band The Low Anthem. The six-time Grammy Award-winning ensemble will be performing as part of their Voices of the Ages 50th anniversary tour. As Ireland’s musical ambassadors, The Chieftans are credited with bringing traditional Irish music to the world’s attention. The event will take place in the Stern Auditorium/Perelman Stage at 8 p.m. Tickets are from $29 to $88, and are available by calling 212-247-7800 or visiting carnegiehall.org or the Carnegie Hall Box Office, 154 W. 57th St.

SENIOR ROUNDTABLE ON CARETAKING
The next session of State Sen. Liz Krueger’s senior roundtable discussions will be held Thursday, March 22 from 8-10 a.m. at Lenox Hill Neighborhood House. The topic, “Beginning the Conversation: Redefining Aging and How We Care for our Elders,” will cover how seniors can begin asking questions about their future care and planning who might be able to help care for them if the time arises when they need assistance.

Ahigial Lee Zhou plays chess at the P.S. 6 Chess Tournament 2012 on March 11.

Alice Fisher, Krueger’s community outreach director, and Frederic Riccardi, director of programs and outreach at the Medicare Rights Center, will be on hand to lead the discussion and answer questions. A light breakfast will be served. 331 E. 70th St. RSVP required at 212-490-9535 or by emailing doremann@gmail.com.

GROCERY STORE AIDS TORNADO VICTIMS
All Fairway locations are continuing a donation and matching drive through this Sunday, March 18 to aid those affected by recent violent storms in the Midwest. At any Fairway in the city (the Upper East Side store is at 240 E. 86th St.), customers can make cash donations of $1, $3 or $5 or purchase a case of water to aid families devastated by the tornadoes that ripped through Alabama, Kentucky, Georgia, Tennessee, Indiana, Ohio, West Virginia, North Carolina, Illinois, Nebraska and Missouri. Fairway will match all money donated up to $25,000 and coordinate shipping truckloads of water, canned goods and other nonperishable items to distribution centers in the affected states.

CATHEDRAL HIGH STUDENT VIES FOR POETRY PRIZE
Cathedral High School student Dionne Muyalde is among the top 10 finalists in the Poetry for Peace contest, a competition that has used the power of social media to gauge the power of student poetry. The contest asked students to respond to the stories of atomic bomb survivors from Japan, known as hibakusha, by writing verse poems. In the monthlong competition, 741 poems were submitted and people voted for their favorites on social media sites.
Muyalde’s poem, entitled “Hiroshima Hibakusha,” was selected as a finalist based on criteria, including the poem’s connection to a hibakusha testimony, its relaying a message of peace, the structure of the verse, the overall impact of the poem and the number of “likes” the poem received.

By Ashley Welch

After Dr. Allison Stern Rosen was diagnosed with breast cancer over 10 years ago, there were some constants she could count on in her life. Fatigue, muscle and bone pain and overall difficulty in moving plagued her on a daily basis.

Depressed by her physical ailments, Rosen turned to the one thing that still brought her great joy—music. One day she began dancing, swaying and rocking her hips gently.

“I was exhausted all the time from the chemo,” she said, “but even though it hurt to walk, I found it exhilarating that I could move to the music without pain.”

Rosen, a psychologist and psychoanalyst, looked into existing research and found studies suggesting exercise was an important part of the rehabilitation of breast cancer patients. However, there were no classes or exercise DVDs tailored to people with cancer.

Rosen decided to change that. She approached her friends, Jan Albert and exercise physiologist Martha Eddy, about creating a dance class specifically for cancer patients. That’s when Moving On Aerobics was born.

Eddy designed the class based on the symptoms many cancer patients experience, including fatigue, pain and loss of range of motion.

“Only when you push your body will you strengthen it,” Eddy said.

However, participants of the class are allowed to go at their own pace.

Today, Moving On Aerobics offers free classes to cancer patients at community centers and hospitals throughout the city, including the JCC on the Upper West Side.

Such exercise classes are part of the growing number of doctor-recommended complementary treatments for cancer patients—treatments in addition to existing methods like radiation and chemotherapy. As more research emerges proving the benefits of these supplemental treatments, they have gained a much wider acceptance from the medical field.

Dr. Alyson Moadel of the Albert Einstein College of Medicine has been researching the effects of yoga on breast cancer patients since 2007.

“We’ve found that breast cancer patients participating in a 12-week yoga program show a significant increase in mood, spiritual well-being and overall quality of life,” she said.

In addition, she said, other forms of exercise can “improve energy levels and decrease fatigue and stress in cancer patients before and after treatment.”

Other, less traditional treatments are also being integrated into overall treatment plans for cancer patients.

Dr. Pamela Yee, integrative internist at the Continuum Center for Health and Healing affiliated with Beth Israel Medical Center, sees patients both before and after radiation and chemotherapy treatments and surgeries.

“Patients come to me before traditional treatments to find ways to reduce side effects, increase their immune system and do anything to strengthen their bodies to receive the treatment,”  Yee said.

After patients undergo the radiation or chemotherapy, Yee will also suggest ways they can rebuild their strength and remain healthy.

One of the methods she recommends is diet change.

“Though during treatment is not the time to make sweeping dietary changes, there are some alterations that can be made,” she said.

Yee suggests patients try to avoid sugar, as studies suggest it may feed cancer. She also said introducing anti-cancer food like cruciferous vegetables, including broccoli, cabbage and brussels sprouts, can be helpful. These vegetables contain compounds that are believed to help prevent many types of cancer, especially breast cancer.

Many cancer patients also find comfort in energetic techniques like acupuncture, the insertion and manipulation of needles in the body to relieve pain and treat other ailments. According to Yee, acupuncture has been proven to reduce some side effects of chemotherapy like nausea and vomiting. However, many of her patients say they benefit from the traditional Chinese practice because it helps balance their whole body.

Yee recommends different herbs or supplements based on the type of chemotherapy a patient has undergone, but she said some are beneficial for most conditions. For example, medicinal mushrooms have been proven to help boost immunity.

While supplements are sometimes difficult to recommend because of the lack of scientific research available, Yee said she does so by analyzing the studies and making suggestions based on the most prevalent available evidence.

Though Yee said conventional methods of treating cancer have certainly proven to be effective, complementary treatments such as these can only help the process.

“When you think of the treatment of cancer, you think about chemo and radiation essentially blasting everything away,” she said. “It’s sort of like a war tactic, bombing and hitting as much as you can. The reason I use other unconventional methods is to attack the cancer in other ways—using other methods that can potentially get a hold on the cancer.