Gift will create the Sackler Brain and Spine Institute, advancing emergency and inpatient care and medical research and education

NEW YORK - New York-Presbyterian/Weill Cornell Medical Center has received a transformative gift from The Mortimer D. Sackler Foundation to create the Sackler Brain and Spine Institute in support of neurological and neurosurgical patient care and innovative medical research and education. The gift was announced at an inauguration celebration yesterday.

With the gift, the hospital will renovate the second floor of its Greenberg Pavilion, the main inpatient facility, and the sixth floor of its Starr Pavilion, to create a hospital-within-a-hospital with the most advanced medical technology for the diagnosis and treatment of all neurosurgical and neurological patients. By centralizing all neurosurgical and neurological services in one location, collaboration between providers will be enhanced, improving the coordinated delivery of multidisciplinary care, efficiency, continuity of care, and the quality of care experienced by the patient. "The institute will bring together all of the various specialists who have expertise relating to the patient's condition," said Dr. Matthew E. Fink, co-director of the Sackler Brain and Spine Institute, neurologist-in-chief at New York-Presbyterian Hospital/Weill Cornell and chairman of the Department of Neurology at Weill Cornell Medical College. "It's critically important that all doctors taking care of these patients are located together in the same area of the hospital and have frequent opportunities for collaboration and consultation. That makes a tremendous difference in the care of the patient." Neurologists and neurosurgeons will collaborate with a range of specialists, including anesthesiologists, emergency medicine physicians and trauma and other surgical specialists, psychiatrists, rehabilitation medicine experts, radiologists, and internal medicine specialists and sub-specialists.
The gift, which includes a new advanced model MRI machine, will transform inpatient care for brain and spinal injuries and disease at New York-Presbyterian/Weill Cornell and further advance the medical center's research in those areas. "The Department of Neurological Surgery at New York-Presbyterian/Weill Cornell has a long and distinguished history in translational research, bringing advances from the lab to the patient bedside," said Dr. Philip E. Stieg, co-director of the Sackler Brain and Spine Institute, neurosurgeon-in-chief at New York-Presbyterian/Weill Cornell and chairman of the Department of Neurological Surgery at Weill Cornell Medical College. "By fostering partnerships between neurological surgery and neurology and between researchers and clinicians, the Sackler Brain and Spine Institute will accelerate and enhance this process."

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