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/Health
At The Heart Of The Big Apple
A department chair at
Henry Ford is heading
off to New York.
0
0
0.
SUZANNE CHESSLER
Special to The Jewish News ,
D
r. Michael Lesch keeps his
hand on the pulse of car-
diac care.
A practicing physician,
researcher and medical journal editor,
for the past nine years Dr. Lesch also
has been chairman of the Department
of Medicine at Henry Ford Hospital.
That will change on July 1, when he
becomes chairman of the Department
of Medicine at St. Luke's Roosevelt
Hospital in New York.
Being closer to family was the
deciding factor for Dr. Lesch and his
wife, Bella.
"The hospitals are pretty much
identical, and my responsibilities will
be pretty much the same," said the 58-
year-old physician. He joined Ford
Hospital after serving as chief of the
Section of Cardiology at Northwestern
University Medical School in Chicago.
He will also serve as a professor of
medicine at Columbia College of
Physicians and Surgeons when he joins
St. Luke's.
Dr. Lesch, whose work week runs
between 60 and 70 hours, spends 40
percent of his time on patient care, 30
percent on administrative duties and
the remainder on education and
research. Much of the latter is wrapped
into patient care activities.
"At the time I was training in the
early '60s, cardiology seemed quite
exciting, and it was something that I
enjoyed doing," said Dr. Lesch, who
received his medical degree from Johns
Hopkins University in Baltimore and
completed his internship and residency
in the Osler Medical Service at Johns
Hopkins.
"The field has certainly met my
expectations with the most telling
comment in the way we treated a heart
attack patient when I was an intern in
1964 and the way we treat a patient in
1998.
"It has become a completely differ-
ent world with great leaps made, and
it's been fun to be part of it and quite
exciting intellectually."
Dr. Lesch recalls his internship years
as a time when heart attack patients
were essentially treated with bed rest.
Patients waited seven days to begin
walking and hospital stays for cardiac
"Dr. Lesch has really been a triple
care averaged 28 days.
threat in his field," said Dr. Steven
Now, specialists can treat arrhyth-
Borzak, director of cardiac intensive
mias, shock people out of heart attacks,
care at Ford Hospital. "He has shown
put in pacemakers, open arteries and
an outstanding level of attention to
do bypass surgery and angioplasty
patient care, research and teaching as
while1uming to any number of drugs
he directs the work of 200
that improve the healing
doctors divided among
Clinician, researcher,
process after an attack
multiple locations.
editor, Dr. Michael
"Everything that is
"He has brought in first-
Lesch is lea ving Ford
stancinrd therapy today
e
years.
after
nin
rate department chiefs,
was not available 35 years
and as the person who is
ago," he explained. "The
in
charge
of
the resident program at
mortality rate for myocardial infarc-
Ford, Dr. Lesch has guided them
tion, assuming the patient made it to
through a changing medical environ-
the hospital, was about 35 percent
ment. He makes time to go on
when I was an intern. It's 6 to 7 per-
rounds."
cent now."
Dr. Lesch directed the following
During his years at Ford, Dr. Lesch
divisions at Ford: allergy and
has studied congestive heart failure and
immunology, cardiovascular medicine,
the mechanisms of treatment.
clinical and molecular genetics,
His team, working with both ani-
endocrinology and metabolism, gas-
mals and patients, found that the pro-
troenterology, general internal medi-
gression of these problems can be
cine, hematology and oncology, hyper-
retarded by increasing standard doses
tension and vascular research, infec-
of nitrates and ACE inhibitors.
tious diseases and hospital epidemiolo-
He also has studied scar tissue and
gy, nephrology and hypertension and
ways to determine which patients can
pulmonary and critical care medicine.
be helped with medication.
Dr. Lesch, who has written more
"One of the things that has come
than 200 articles and abstracts on dif-
out of a lot of research in the past 10
ferent aspects of cardiovascular medi-
years is that the degree of symptoms
cine, does not consider his work stress-
that a patient has is not necessarily
ful because he likes what he's doing.
related to the degree of (heart) dys-
He is especially enthusiastic about
function.
recent
evidence showing that heart dis-
"Someone who has trivial dysfunc-
ease
can
be prevented with the use of a
tion or modest dysfunction can be
new
class
of drugs, called statins, by
quite limited. Conversely, people who
taking
aspirin
and folic acid regularly,
have almost total dysfunction can be
and implantable defibrillators. He
without symptoms.
looks forward to more studies on how
"Probably in the next decade, the
each of these treatments can be applied
thing that we're going to see is research
most effectively for individual patients.
into what's best for a population of
Outside work, Dr. Lesch is enthusi-
patients and how we can determine
astic
about programs at the Bais
that. How can we save our silver bul-
Chabad of West Bloomfield, activities
lets for the people who need them and
that include his wife and two grown
not use them on those who don't."