SleepTalker December 2022

Pain Symposium Presentations

• Rismany J, Watson E, Kidwai A, Gupta A. Successful Cervical Spinal Cord Stimulation Trial for Treatment of Upper Extremity CRPS after Insurance Related Treatment Delays.
• Rismany J, Watson E, Kidwai A, Gupta A. Successful Treatment of Multifactorial Chronic Low Back Pain with Basivertebral Nerve Ablation in Patient with Previously Inserted Interspinous Spacer
• Daksla N, Rismany J, Caldwell W. Traditional Spinal Cord Stimulation With Lateral Placement For Right Hip Pain in Patient With Complex Regional Pain Syndrome.
• Watson E, Gupta A. Utilization of Spinal Cord Stimulation Therapy for Post Laminectomy Syndrome Complicated by Chronic Pain Induced Depression and Psychiatric Comorbidities.

Pain Fellow, Dr. Elizabeth Watson's poster was selected as a First Prize winner from the 90+ submitted posters! Congratulations!	Liz had the opportunity to meet up with former co-residents. Ishu Kant who is at Mt Sinai West for pain management. Ben Kim who is at Mt Sinai as well as Ramanjot Kang and Lucas Bracero who are pain management fellows at Cornell.

Dental Anesthesiology News

Ralph Epstein, DDS

   The news from the Division of DA is that we have completed our match for the academic year starting July 2023. We did extremely well and will have the following four new residents starting in July:

• Catherine Frusetta from USC
• Madison Garrity from Columbia University
• Laura Hippensteel from Indiana University
• Eddie Starr who has been in private practice for several years from Louisiana, previously from Great Neck

   On a personal note, my son Joshua Epstein got engaged to his fiancé Storm Hurwitz!

MILD Simulation Session

Joshua Rismany, MD and Elizabeth Watson, MD

Dr. Amit Kaushal conducted a MILD simulation session for residents Drs. Joshua Rismany, Shayla Mena, and Neil Daksla the pain fellow Dr. Elizabeth Watson.

Swimming with the Sharks at ASA

Ursula Landman, DO, FAOCA

This year at the ASA meeting, the Foundation for Anesthesia Education and Research (FAER) hosted a "Swimming with the Sharks" event. Various FAER students pitched their innovative ideas to a panel of experts, in the format of the Shark Tank television show. OMS3 students Sonia Amanat and Edward Piscitelli pitched their virtual reality teaching tool for epidural placement. They did not place among the six finalists but they did received helpful feedback. It was a great learning experience for the students!

   On November 1st, Dr. Stephen Vitkun spoke to the Anesthesia Interest Group on airway management. We had an enthusiastic turnout who enjoyed the lecture and they are looking forward to our next meeting. If anyone is interested in speaking with the group -please contact me further information.

Synaptic Communication

James P. Dilger, PhD

   It is with mixed emotions that I write; this is the last issue of SleepTalker that I will edit! It has been three years since my initial "retirement", and I have enjoyed the absence of a daily timetable. Dr. Gan and then Dr. Bergese have been gracious enough to allow me to remain busy with the duties of webmaster and newsletter editor. At this point, though, even the flexible deadlines that come with these tasks are a source of stress to me. I told my wife, Kate, that I will spend less time on the laptop keyboard and more time on my music keyboard!

   My mathematical mind will not let this occasion pass without including some numbers. The history of a departmental newsletter goes back to 1996 when Dr. Paul Poppers was Chairman and I was Vice-Chair for Research. At the urging of Dr. Mario Rebecchi, I started a monthly research newsletter. Of course, it was hard copy only at this point. This kinda petered out after two years. Sometime after Dr. Peter Glass' arrival as Chair, the newsletter was reconceived as a general newsletter and began publishing in January 2001. Patricia Owens, Dr. Glass' administrative assistant at the time, suggested the name "SleepTalker" and it stuck! We published a paper version nearly every month until 2014. At some point, we included a pdf version on the departmental website. From 2009 to 2015, Dr. Helene Benveniste, who was Vice-Chair for Research at the time, published a quarterly Research Newsletter. After Dr. Gan's arrival in 2014, we changed to the current SleepTalker format in which it is embedded in an email and appears in html format on the web. These 92 issues, from May 2015 to the present, are archived on the website.

   While browsing through some of the early issues of the newsletter, I came across one from 2004. The Department noted its 25^th Anniversary with a special issue containing remembrances by several of the departmental pioneers. You might enjoy reading it.

   In addition to thanking Drs. Glass, Gan and Bergese for their support of the newsletter, I want to mention Dr. Steve Vitkun, who has been on the editorial board since 2015 and stopped me from committing clinical faux pas. In recent years, I have had a twenty-something liaison to prevent me from committing generational/cultural faux pas: Drs. Shivam Shodham, Richard Tenure, Ramanjot Kang, and Murad Elias. Actually, they did much more than that! The Chair's administrative assistants kept me informed of personnel news, department events, and clinical heroics. Special thanks to Patricia Owens, Cathy Homburger, and Marisa Barone-Citrano! It would be hard to list all of their names, but I also thank members of the department: division chiefs, researchers, alumni, photographers, poets, and philosophers who contributed their insights and talents for newsletter articles over the years! Quite literally, I could not have done it without you!

   When I get inspired to do so, I'll contribute a "Synaptic Communication" blurb to a future issue of the newsletter! Farewell!

James P. Dilger, PhD

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