Spencer Eugene Amory, MD

Jane S. Kang, MD, is Associate Professor of Medicine at Columbia University Irving Medical Center (CUIMC) in the Division of Rheumatology and a bioethicist with a Masters of Bioethics from Columbia University. She was the Rheumatology Fellowship Program Director at CUIMC for over a decade, was named an Ewig Clinical Scholar at CUIMC for her work in teaching and education and received a Fellowship Training Award from the Rheumatology Research Foundation (RRF). In addition to being actively involved in teaching and trainee education, Dr. Kang has been interested in addressing bioethical issues in medicine and rheumatology. She was awarded the RRF Clinician Scholar Educator Award, which supported her work in creating an online, interactive bioethics curriculum for trainees, covering topics such as the recruitment of vulnerable research subjects and the globalization of clinical research. Her bioethics work also includes exploring participant preferences for the return of research results, investigating researchers’ practices and views on returning incidental findings, and using the arts to address physician well-being, moral injury and health equity. Dr. Kang served on the American College of Rheumatology (ACR) Board of Directors, as Chair of the ACR Ethics and Conflict of Interest Committee, and as Co-Chair of the ACR Strategic Planning Task Force and Co-Chair of the ACR In-Training Examination Taskforce.

B. Payne Stanifer, MD, MPH has been with the Department of Surgery at NewYork-Presbyterian/Columbia University Irving Medical Center since 2017. He completed his fellowship as the chief fellow in thoracic surgery at Northwestern University in Chicago, IL where he trained under Dr. Malcolm DeCamp and Dr. Patrick McCarthy in thoracic and cardiac surgery. His clinical interests encompass all areas of thoracic surgery including lung and esophageal cancer, thymic tumors, tracheal resection and reconstruction, and surgery for tracheomalacia (tracheoplasty), chest wall, diaphragm, benign esophageal disease, surgery for emphysema, and lung transplant. He has skills in both minimally invasive and complex open surgery of the chest and the abdomen. Dr. Stanifer has a special interest in complex VATS pulmonary surgery including lobectomy and segmentectomy. He prefers minimally invasive techniques such as laparoscopy and VATS for the esophagus whenever possible but performs all forms of esophagectomies based on the patient’s needs. Dr. Stanifer has authored numerous presentations, abstracts, and publications on topics in thoracic surgery such as lung cancer, tracheal surgery, spontaneous pneumothorax, and interstitial lung disease. His research at Columbia has focused on oncology with particular interests in clinical trials, outcomes, and the epidemiology and mechanisms of lung cancer in non-smokers, especially women. He is one of the founders and directors of the Women’s Lung Center within the Price Family Center for Comprehensive Chest Care. This multidisciplinary center focuses on unique issues facing women including lung cancer in non-smokers and metastatic cancers. Dr. Stanifer completed his general surgery residency at Dartmouth-Hitchcock Medical Center and Dartmouth Medical School in New Hampshire. He is Board-certified in general surgery. While at Dartmouth, he obtained a Master of Public Health degree from Harvard with a focus on management and health policy. During his time at Harvard he was a Carson Family Scholar. He graduated medical school from the James H. Quillen College of Medicine at East Tennessee State University where he was a Quillen Medical Scholar. While a student at Quillen, he completed a research fellowship at the National Institutes of Health in Bethesda, MD. He is a graduate of the College of William and Mary where he focused on molecular and evolutionary biology. His research won a Howard Hughes Student Research grant. He has extensive volunteer experience in underserved areas and was an intern for the Association of Clinicians for the Underserved in Washington, D.C. He can be reached at (212) 305-3408.

Patricia Finnegan, NP is a Women’s Health Nurse Practitioner is the division of Gynecologic Oncology at NewYork-Presbyterian/Columbia University Irving Medical Center. She cares for patients with gynecologic cancers and patients with abnormal gynecologic problems. Before joining Columbia in 2015, Patricia served as Women’s Health Nurse Practitioner at Montefiore Nyack Hospital in Nyack, NY. Patricia has received numerous accolades for her work as nurse practitioner, including the 2018 the Employee Recognition Award from the Department of Obstetrics and Gynecology at NYP/CUIMC, the Margaret Eliot Award and the Rockland County Nurse Recognition.