News Briefs

Bolstering Home Care Workers

Providing care in the home can feel like a challenging, and sometimes, thankless job. With the demand for home care at an all-time high, Dr. Madeline Sterling (B.A. ’08, M.S. ’18), an assistant professor of medicine at Weill Cornell Medicine, teamed up with experts from Cornell University School of Industrial and Labor Relations and Cornell Tech to conduct research designed to elevate the value of home care workers and improve both their working conditions and their patients’ outcomes.

Over the last four years, the team has partnered with the country’s largest health care worker union to produce 20 academic papers aimed at reshaping how policymakers view this vital workforce. In June, they began a clinical trial testing of one of their interventions.

“More patients want to age in place,” explains Dr. Sterling. “Home care providers deliver essential day-to-day care to help manage patients’ chronic conditions. We need to recognize their contributions and make them part of the medical arena.”

100% Match Day 2022

Every one of the 116 graduating students in the Weill Cornell Medical College Class of 2022 who entered the match secured postgraduate residency positions. Forty students matched to NewYork-Presbyterian/Weill Cornell Medical Center and NewYork-Presbyterian/Columbia University Irving Medical Center, and 38 will pursue primary care residencies in internal medicine, pediatrics, family medicine and obstetrics and gynecology.

“Before medical school even started, I remember thinking — I’m gonna match one day,” said Dr. Nivita Sharma (M.D. ’22), who matched at Duke University Medical Center for internal medicine. “The fact that it’s finally here, and the fact that Weill Cornell could get me to my dream program, I feel relief, enthusiasm and excitement for the future.”
(See more about Match Day at Alumni Moments).

Hacking Health

Teeming with ways to use technology to solve societal ails like overwork and burnout, Jia Cheng and Thasin Peyear, students in the Weill Cornell Graduate School of Medical Sciences, led two grand-prize winning teams to victory at the Human Performance Hackathon in New York City, organized by the Clinical Translational Science Center, and Entrepreneurship at Cornell. Each team took home $8,000.

Supporting Transgender Kids

“Every child deserves to feel validated and supported as they explore their gender identity,” says Dr. Jane Chang, an associate professor of clinical pediatrics at Weill Cornell Medicine and an associate attending pediatrician at NewYork-Presbyterian/Weill Cornell Medical Center. Dr. Chang partnered with a psychiatric nurse practitioner, a pediatric endocrinologist, a social worker and a mental health specialist to launch the Compass Program to provide a safe space for kids with Medicaid insurance to explore their gender journey, along with their parents.