HumanImmunodeficiencyVirusHIV near Englewood Cliffs, NJ

Biography: During my years as a clinician educator in the HIV program and Infectious Disease division, I directed a variety of healthcare capacity building efforts. These included the upper Manhattan Clinical Education Initiative, a NYS DOHMH AIDS Institute sponsored HIV educational initiative that targeted community-based physicians, nurses and physician assistants (1995-2003) and the Nicholas A. Rango HIV Scholars Program, a post graduate training program focused on ambulatory HIV care (1998-2010). I directed quality improvement efforts for the Columbia University Irving Medical Center HIV program and used QI methodology to expand HIV testing, initiate HIV testing in the Emergency Department (using NYC DOH grant funding), and institute point-of-care testing to ambulatory sites throughout New York-Presbyterian Medical Center. I was elected to the Glenda Garvey/Virginia Apgar Academy of Outstanding Medical Educators, directed global health training for the Internal Medicine residency program at Columbia University Irving Medical Center, and served as Chief of Service for the NYPH inpatient Infectious Diseases service. In 2009, I had the opportunity to teach at the Infectious Diseases Institute in Kampala, Uganda. Later, I worked on curriculum development for the Medical Education Partnership Initiative (MEPI) collaboration between the Columbia University ID division and Nelson Mandela School of Medicine in Durban, South Africa. These experiences engaged my desire to work on a broader, and more scientific and more international, basis. In 2018, I realized the opportunity to expand my focus on HIV treatment to an international scale and to step more definitively into the era of HIV prevention. I moved to a position in the Mailman School of Public Health at Columbia University ICAP program. I am currently an Adult Care and Treatment specialist providing support for HIV care and treatment capacity building efforts in Ukraine, Central Asia, Sierra Leone, and the Democratic Republic, and serving as a co-investigator on studies of HIV prevention at the Bronx Prevention Center. .

Care Philosophy: We are committed to delivering the best care and an exceptional patient experience. We are devoted to providing services that are patient-centered and compassionate, and care for you as a person.

Biography: I am a "lifer" at Columbia. I was born in this very hospital, grew up running the halls with my father who was chief of the Division of Adult Infectious Diseases, attended medical school here, and then did a fellowship in pediatric infectious diseases. You could say that infectious diseases are in my blood. Not many kids at age eight say, "I like bugs and drugs." That was my childhood. I treat children of all ages, from infancy to young adulthood. My specific areas of interest are post-operative wound infections and infections of the bone, as well as sexual health concerns such as sexually transmitted diseases (STD), vaccines, and HIV. I also enjoy helping families sort out mystery illnesses such as recurrent fevers and fatigue. Often these illnesses are not due to an infection, and sometimes it just takes time and listening to figure them out. My research interests are focused on infection control and prevention for children at home, school, and when they live in long term care facilities such as a pediatric post-acute care facilities. I teach healthcare providers through our NYC STD prevention and training grant to provide excellent sexual health services to all young adult populations (those who have easy access to care and those who don't). Specific issues that we train on are how to increase access to STD screening, how to recognize, test, and treat STDs, how to offer HIV testing, and pre-exposure prophylaxis to prevent HIV. As the pediatric infectious disease fellowship director, I am also very involved in training and inspiring future pediatric infectious disease physicians. The work that we do in infectious diseases is collaborative, and we often work as a team with other services to provide the best, most efficient care to our patients.

Biography: Dr. Matthew Scherer, MD is an Internist who practices in New York, NY. He has been practicing for 21 years. Dr. Matthew Scherer, MD is affiliated with NewYork-Presbyterian/The Allen Hospital and Newyork-Presbyterian/Columbia University Medical Center.