Faculty

PROGRAM LEADERSHIP

Robert Faillace, MD, Msc - Department Chair

Phone: 718-918-5643
E-mail: Robert.Faillace@nychhc.org 

Dr. Faillace is nationally renowned as an innovative leader, scholar, researcher, teacher, and clinician, and brings an outstanding track record of accomplishments in quality improvement, innovation, and expert executive medical management. Prior to joining the North Bronx Healthcare Network team, Dr. Faillace served as Director of Cardiovascular Quality and Innovation for the Geisinger Healthcare System, one of the nation’s premier hospitals and a five-hospital system where. At Geisinger, he was lead physician for the development and implementation of system-wide inpatient and outpatient improvements in treating and managing heart failure. He concurrently served as Medical Director for Geisinger Medial Center’s Hospital for Advanced Medicine’s cardiovascular services.

Dr. Faillace’s eclectic, varied clinical and research interests include three decades of experience in overseeing both local and regional research projects. He served as Director of World-Wide Research for Bristol-Myers Squibb Pharmaceutical Company, and has been recognized throughout his career for extraordinary accomplishments.

While serving as Chairman of Cardiovascular Services for the St. Joseph’s Healthcare System in Pater and Wayne, New Jersey, Dr. Faillace led center-wide teams to achieve over 30 national and state awards including:

  • A 5-Star Rating for In-Hospital and Six-Month Mortality by Health Grades for Heart Failure
  • the Joint Commission Advanced Heart Failure Certification Award (the eighth in the USA)
  • the Magnet Prize for the Women’s Health Center

In recognition for his close collaboration with nursing, team-building skills, and work for patient advocacy, Dr. Faillace received the 2009 Apple Award from the Institute of Nursing.

Dr. Faillace was the Founding Director of both the Heart Failure Center for Ethnic Minorities, initially funded by a Robert Wood Johnson grant, and MR CHAMMP, a community-based screening, education, and access to care hypertension program which was nationally recognized by the association of Black Cardiologists and the Massachusetts General Hospital Disparities Leadership Program.

Cynthia Chong, MD, FACP - Department Vice-Chair

Phone: 718-918-5752
E-mail: cynthia.chong@nychhc.org 

Cynthia Chong (AECOM ’83) completed a residency in Internal Medicine, Primary Care Track in Jacobi Medical Center in 1986. Subsequently, she served in the National Health Service Corps as an internist and medical director in an underserved urban health center located in Chinatown, New York City. She returned to Jacobi Medical Center/Albert Einstein College of Medicine in 1989 during the expansion of the Adult Primary Care Service and has continued in a variety of academic, administrative and direct patient care roles. Her current roles are Associate Executive Director of Risk, Quality, Patient Safety and Vice Chairman, Department of Medicine. As such, she has been able to pursue her interests in general internal medicine, medical education, quality/performance improvement, safety net patient care and advocacy.

Medical School:
Albert Einstein College of Medicine, 1983
Training
Residency in internal medicine, Bronx Municipal Hospital Center/AECOM, 1983-6

Andrew Gutwein, MD, FACP - Program Director

Phone: 718-918-5640
E-mail: Andrew.Gutwein@nychhc.org 

Dr. Andrew Gutwein is, above all else, an internist.  He is an Associate Professor of Clinical Medicine at the Albert Einstein College of Medicine and Program Director for the Internal Medicine Residency at Jacobi Medical Center. Dr. Gutwein was recruited from Westchester Medical Center where he spent 7 years rising up the Program Directorship tree until his final two years there where he was the Program Director of their Internal Medicine Residency.

Dr. Gutwein earned his B.A. in mathematics from New York University in 1994 and from there went on to earn his M.D. from Albert Einstein College of Medicine in 1998.  He then completed his residency training at Lenox Hill Hospital in 2001, where he stayed on for a year as Chief Resident before heading to Westchester Medical Center in July 2002. Dr. Gutwein spent four and a half years as the Medical Director of the Adult Primary Care Center teaching housestaff and running the Medicine Clinic at Westchester Medical Center before being promoted to Program Director. In addition to his residency responsibilities, Dr. Gutwein was also the Director of the Internal Medicine Subinternship for New York Medical College for six and a half years.

Dr. Gutwein enjoys working with residents and medical students, both at the bedside and in the conference room discussing cases and Quality Improvement/Patient Safety initiatives.  He strongly pursues evidence based medicine and challenges those he teaches to do so as well. His friendly but firm style make him an approachable and respected leader.

Susan Dresdner, MD - Senior Associate Program Director

Andre Outon, MD - Associate Program Director

E-mail: outona@nychhc.org 

Perminder Gulani, MD - Associate Program Director

E-mail: Perminder.Gulani@nychhc.org 

Dr. Gulani completed his medical school education at University of Delhi from University College of Medical Sciences & Guru Teg Bahadur Hospital in India. He did Internal Medicine residency at Jacobi Medical Center and fellowship training in Critical Care Medicine at Montefiore Medical Center/Albert Einstein College of Medicine, and served as a chief fellow for the academic year 2013-2014.

Dr. Gulani joined Jacobi Medical Center as an attending in Critical Care Medicine in 2014 with the division of Pulmonary & Critical Care Medicine. He is board certified in Internal Medicine and Critical Care Medicine. He enjoys teaching medical house staff and pulmonary and critical care fellows. Dr. Gulani organizes simulation training on airway management for fellows and medical house staff at the Institute of Medical Simulation and Advanced learning (IMSAL). His research interests include: non-invasive assessment of fluid responsiveness in ICU patients, training modalities for rapid response and cardiac arrest teams, specificity and positive predictive value of echocardiography findings in pulmonary embolism, and provision of palliative care in ICU patients.

Kimberly Cartmill, MD - Associate Program Director

E-mail: Cartmilk@nychhc.org 

Dr. Cartmill graduated from Dartmouth Medical School in 2011.  She then completed her Internal Medicine Primary Care residency program at NYU.  After 3 years as a primary care attending at Montefiore, she joined the Internal Medicine faculty at Jacobi hospital.  She is board certified in Internal Medicine.
As an attending at Jacobi and Associate Professor at Einstein College of Medicine, she enjoys teaching medical students and residents.  In 2021, Dr. Cartmill completed the GNYHA Clinical Quality Fellowship Program.  With this training, she has developed a quality and safety curriculum for Jacobi Internal Medicine residents.  She is also the quality improvement lead for the primary care clinic. Her other interests include treating substance use disorder and Hepatitis C in the outpatient internal medicine setting. 

Carla Saladini Aponte, MD - Associate Program Director

E-mail: saladinc@nychhc.org
Carla Saladini Aponte,M.D., works as a hospitalist at Jacobi Medical Center (JMC). She is an Associate Program Director for the Internal Medicine Residency at JMC. She is also a Clinical Assistant Professor in the Department of Clinical Medicine at the Albert Einstein College of Medicine. Dr Saladini was born in Puerto Rico (P.R.). She earned her medical degree at the Universidad Central del Caribe, P.R..  She completed her Internal Medicine Residency at SUNY Downstate Medical Center, N.Y.. She joined the faculty at Jacobi in 2019. Dr. Saladini is passionate about patient care, evidence-based medicine, and medical education. She integrates healing and patient care with teaching the next generation of doctors in her role as an academic attending.  Her favorite duties as an educator include working with residents during their inpatient medicine rotations and directing the noon conference lectures on board exam preparation. Her clinical and scientific interests include quality improvement and high value care projects on hospital medicine.

Monica Wat MD, co-director of the internal medicine clerkship

Dr. Wat is an academic hospitalist at Jacobi and also the interim assistant director of the hospitalist division. She graduated from St. George’s University School of Medicine and completed her residency at New York Presbyterian-Queen. She joined Jacobi in 2019. She is an assistant professor at Albert Einstein College of Medicine.  She is the City University of New York School of Medicine co-director of the internal medicine clerkship at Jacobi and an affiliate assistant medical professor. She enjoys working with residents and medical students to guide them along their medical career and helping them achieve their goals. She is a Fellow of the American College of Physicians and is board certified in internal medicine. Her interests include quality improvement projects and patient safety.

Marley Hue

I grew up in Hanoi, Vietnam and went to college in Illinois, studying Economics, Mathematics, and Japanese. Soon after, I enrolled at Duke University School of Medicine. After Duke, I pursued further training with a residency at the Hofstra/ Northwell Internal Medicine program. In addition to patient care, teaching and research are personally rewarding. I enjoy both city life and nature! Besides spending time with my family and friends, my hobbies include swimming, going to the beach, exploring new places, dancing, cooking, singing, and gardening. 

Junaid Anwar, MD

Junaid Anwar, M.D. is a Board Certified Internal Medicine Physician at Jacobi Medical Center. Dr. Anwar was born in Pakistan and raised in New York. He earned his medical degree from St. George’s University School of Medicine, Grenada. He completed Internal Medicine Residency at Icahn School of Medicine at Mount Sinai – Elmhurst Hospital Program, New York in 2022. In 2023, Dr. Anwar completed Clinical Leadership Fellowship with Health + Hospitals – Jacobi Medical Center. Dr. Anwar is passionate about academic medicine and quality improvement/patient safety efforts. He currently serves as an Academic Hospitalist, teaching and mentoring next generation of physicians. He is also involved in the Office of Quality and Executive Administration, working on various efforts to improve patient satisfaction and delivery of high value care to patients at Jacobi Medical Center.      

HOSPITALIST DIVISION

Supreet Dhaliwal, MD
Andre Outon, MD


Leonidas Palaiodimos, MD

Dr. Palaiodimos graduated summa cum laude from the Aristotle University of Thessaloniki Medical School in 2009. He then worked as a military medical officer for the Hellenic Air Force until 2015, when he started his internal medicine residency training at Jacobi Medical Center. He is board certified in internal medicine and a fellow of the Americal College of Physicians. Dr. Palaiodimos worked as a hospital medicine attending physician at Montefiore Medical Center from 2018 to 2020, when he returned to Jacobi Medicine Center assuming to the roles of academic hospitalist and director of clinical research in the division of hospital medicine. He has received multiple awards for excellence in teaching and dedication to mentorship. He is a member of the Leo M. Davidoff Society, an assistant professor at the Albert Einstein College of Medicine and an adjunct associate professor at the CUNY School of Medicine. He has co-authored more than sixty peer-reviewed journal articles. His interests include cardiovascular clinical research, obesity, point-of-care ultrasound, and bedside procedures. 

 

Elham Azimi-Nekoo, MD

Gabriel Leonte, MD (Nocturnist)

Raja Bronson, MD

Bronson Raja, M.D., serves as a hospitalist at Jacobi Medical Center (JMC). Originally hailing from India, Dr. Raja earned his medical degree from Angeles University Foundation School of Medicine, Philippines. Subsequently, he completed his Internal Medicine residency program at Medstar Harbor Hospital and holds board certification in Internal Medicine. Following more than three years of service as a hospitalist in Corpus Christi, Texas, he joined the team at Jacobi in 2021. Dr. Raja exhibits a deep passion to the education of medical students and residents, currently assuming the role of an assistant professor at CUNY and Albert Einstein Medical Schools. Additionally, he oversees the acting internship program for fourth-year medical students from Albert Einstein. Driven by a passion for medical research, he actively engages in retrospective studies focusing on venous thromboembolism in collaboration with residents.

AMBULATORY CARE DIVISION

Lisa Rucker, MD
Angela Astuto, MD
Kimberly Cartmill, MD
Susan Dresdner, MD
Itha Harewood, MD
Steven Hahn, MD
Lori Lemberg, MD
Mathew Love, MD
Katalin Macs, MD
Caroline Mooney, MD
Ingrid Nelson, MD
Lakshmi Paruchuri, MD
Schantal Polanco, MD
Karen Shahan, MD
Joplin Steinweiss, MD
Elana Sydney, MD
Kathleen Ward, MD
Eleanor Weinstein, MD
Jennifer Huang, MD

 

ALLERGY AND IMMUNOLOGY

Gabriele DeVos, MD

CARDIOLOGY

Seth Sokol, MD
Michael Grushko, MD
Eleanora Gashi, MD
Jay Meisner, MD
Rosy Thachil, MD
Jincy Thankachen, MD
Nidhish Tiwari, MD
Timothy F. Christian, MD

DERMATOLOGY

Rachel Blasiak, MD

ENDOCRINOLOGY

Preeti Kishore, MD

GASTROENTEROLOGY

Stanley Goldberg, MD
Arthur Harris, MD
Donald Kotler, MD
Douglas Simon, MD
Sunny Patel, MD

HEMATOLOGY ONCOLOGY

Abishek Kumar, MD
Tarek Elrafei, MD
Richard Gralla, MD
Lewis Steinberg, MD
Crystal Antoine-Pepeljugoski, MD
Julia Mandelblat, MD

INFECTIOUS DISEASES

David Stein MD

David Stein, MD, FACP did his residency training at Thomas Jefferson University Hospital in Pennsylvania and Infectious Diseases Fellowship at Boston University Medical Center.  Since joining the Faculty at Jacobi Medical Center he has been a sub-site director for the ACTG (AIDS Clinical Trials Group), a co-site director for the CPCRA (Community Program for Clinical Research on AIDS), and a Principal Investigator for the MSG (Mycoses Study Group).  He has been a Principal Investigator on numerous clinical trials, primarily on AIDS, COVID and Fungal Infections.  He serves as the Director of Adult HIV Research at Jacobi and continues to bring new studies to the population here.  His groundbreaking work on a study of gene editing of HIV infected patients was published in the New England Journal of Medicine.  He has risen to the rank of Professor of Medicine at Albert Einstein College of Medicine in the Division of Infectious Diseases.  He has been awarded several teaching awards, and actively manages a clinic population of HIV infected individuals.  He also serves as one of the consult attendings on the Infectious Diseases Consult Service. 

 

Jason Leider, MD
Christina Coyle, MD
Elizabeth Avital-Jenny, MD
Carol Harris, MD
Mindy Katz, MD
Melissa Weiner, MD
Fanny Ita-Nagy, MD
Catalin Florita, MD

NEPHROLOGY

Anjali Acharya, MD
Kisra Anis, MD
Naheed Ansari, MD
Belinda Jim, MD
Nidhi Varma, MD

PALLIATIVE MEDICINE

Frankenthaler Michael, MD
Elizabeth Kavanagh
Ingrid Nelson, MD

 

PULMONARY AND CRITICAL CARE

Chang Shim, MD
Perminder Gulani, MD
Matthew Langston, MD
Keval Joshi, MD
Diane Maggiore, MD
Reka Salgunan, MD
Joaquin Morante, MD
Hassan Patail, MD
Evgeny Pinelis, MD
Vanita Gupta, MD

 

RHEUMATOLOGY

Beverly Johnson, MD
Nana Jinjolava, MD
Milena Vukelic, MD
Maddalena Allegretta, MD

 

NEUROLOGY

Peter Mabie, MD
Lenore Ocava, MD
Chuang Cathy, MD
Napier Fabreena, MD