Jacobs School faculty to discuss impacts of COVID-19 on medicine

Faculty from the Jacobs School of Medicine and Biomedical Sciences will discuss the multidisciplinary impacts of COVID-19 on medicine at a webinar hosted by the Jacobs Institute (JI).

“COVID Unmasked: The Real Impact on the Future of Medicine” will be held from 4– 5:30 p.m. Sept. 17. Registration is free.

It is part of “The Future of Medicine” series that the JI launched last year as a conversation about what is possible in the next quarter-century in medicine, including new technologies and treatments across all fields of medicine and health care.

Kenneth V. Snyder, associate professor of neurosurgery, radiology and neurology in the Jacobs School, is among the speakers who will discuss what the future of medicine looks like as a result of COVID-19. His talk is titled “The Virus Explained: What makes it so different and can we treat it?”

He says the Future of Medicine series has been transformative for the JI and the community. “In fact, it presciently predicted a major pandemic within a short time frame that would transform our world,” says Snyder, who is also vice president of physician quality at Kaleida Health, where he oversees COVID-19 patient care management.

As much as the pandemic has shaken global society as a whole, Snyder notes it will have a long-lasting and dramatic impact on all facets of health care and medicine.

“COVID has taught us all so much,” he says. “It has given us an incredible opportunity to learn about a disease process as a global community of providers and researchers, and it has opened our eyes to how technology can improve how we care for patients and learn from one another.”

Snyder will be part of a program that also features:

• J. Stephen Morris, senior vice president at the Center for Strategic and International Studies and director of its Global Health Policy Center, who will discuss “Pandemic comparisons and the vaccine race.”
• Steven R. Galster, an expert on wet markets and zoonotic diseases, and director of Freeland, a non-profit organization fighting against wildlife trafficking and human slavery, who will discuss “COVID-19 animal origin: Transmission to humans and prevention.”
• Amarpreet Sawhney, CEO of Instylla, a company focused on embolic therapies for hypervascular tumors and control of hemorrhage, and Pramand LLC, which develops biosurgery products, who will discuss “Industry impact: How can entrepreneurship survive and thrive?”

The program’s moderators are L. Nelson “Nick” Hopkins, SUNY Distinguished Professor, former chair of the Department of Neurosurgery in the Jacobs School and founder of the Jacobs Institute; Adnan Siddiqui, vice chair and professor of neurosurgery and chief medical officer at the JI; and Steven D. Schwaitzberg, professor and chair of the Department of Surgery in the Jacobs School. Bill Maggio, CEO of the JI, will make introductory remarks.

“We are excited to share ideas from thought leaders across this country on what we have learned from COVID, and share insights into what positive disruptive technology can do for the health care community moving forward,” Snyder said. “It has highlighted the importance of public health measures and the need for us to think about the greater good of communities while caring for individual patients.”