Dr. George S. Lewandowski, MD

Host: Kyle Mazurek

Pre-Lecture

Dr. Lewandowski asked me to do some very brief (about 5 minutes) of quick research into his background before he spoke with the class. He wants to differentiate between what the internet says about a professional and what that professional says about themselves, "the truth."

Bio

Education

A graduate of The Ohio State University College of Medicine, Dr. Lewandowski completed his residency in the Department of OB/GYN at Ohio State and his fellowship in gynecologic oncology at Georgetown University, where he served as an instructor in OB/GYN.

Professional Experience

A participant in research activities as a member of the Gynecologic Oncology Group, he has served on the Mount Carmel Human Subject Protection Committee for more than 10 years. Dr. Lewandowski is a board member of the Mount Carmel Foundation, serving on the Development Subcommittee and Physician Philanthropy Committee. He is a member of the Society of Gynecologic Oncologists, Community Oncology Alliance and The Ohio State University Alumni Association.

Awards/Certifications

Dr. Lewandowski is board certified in obstetrics & gynecology and gynecologic oncology by the American Board of Obstetrics and Gynecology and is a fellow of the American College of Obstetrics and Gynecology. He has re-certified annually since 2000. He has twice been awarded the John G. Boutselis Award for Outstanding Teaching in the Department of Obstetrics & Gynecology at Mount Carmel Medical Center (awarded by The Ohio State University College of Medicine) and the OSU College of Medicine Faculty Teaching Award. He is institutional co-principal investigator for Mount Carmel Health: Gynecologic Oncology Group and is a peer review consultant for medical publications Gynecologic Oncology and Cancer.

Post-Lecture

All the information above ended up being accurate.

Bio

Who?

Dr. George Lewandowski is a women's cancer specialist. He graduated from John Carroll University in 1978 and later from The Ohio State University in 1982. He was in OB/GYN residency from 1982 until 1986 followed by a Gynecological Oncology fellowship. On May 24, 2012 he was directed as John Carroll University's physician in residence. You can find him in his office at E236 in the Dolan Science Center or e-mail him at ude.ucj|ikswodnawelg#ude.ucj|ikswodnawelg.

Dr. Lewandowski is a practitioner of practical gynecologic oncology. Starting with The Ohio State University James Cancer Hospital from 1989 until 1997, followed by private practices from 1997 until 2007. His private practices consisted of 14 two person subgroups.

What does a gynecological oncologist do?

  • Perform radical cancer surgery
  • Chemotherapy and Immunotherapy
  • Consult and coordinate radiation therapy
  • Experts in women's health
  • Research

When?

Dr. Lewandowski spent 23 of his 26 years of active practice in a two person on-call rotation at four hospitals. He worked on-call 12 out of 14 days in a two week cycle. On-call rotations consist of hospital rounds, patient phone calls, and emergency consults.

A routine week:

  • Monday: Surgery, Hospital Rounds, Consult
  • Tuesday: Hospital rounds, Office Hours
  • Wednesday: Hospital conferences, Surgery, Rounds, Consults
  • Thursday: Hospital rounds, Office Hours
  • Friday: Research Clinic, Rounds, Office Catch Up

How does this all fit into Medical Informatics?

"A soldier can survive weeks without food and water but only minutes without data."

What Challenges face a practicing physician?

The quality of data a physician takes in heavily affects the service they are able to provide. If they receive garbage data, service is likely to reflect that quality of data. There is a large workforce of registered nurses, medical doctors, and nurse technicians without proper IT comfort. The volume of data they receive also presents an issue, there is a lot of unnecessary or extra data that makes it difficult to cut through to the important information. It can also contribute to the alarm fatigue medical professionals suffer from. Transportability of healthcare data is also in dire need of improvement, much of the data does not cross platforms gracefully. Also, the access levels to data is "wishy-washy." Who owns the rights to share/use/research/process data?

Keeping up with the expansion of capabilities also raises issues. As intelligence in telemedicine increases alongside the apps for diagnosis, it becomes difficult to keep track of all the places data is going. The portability of data is cause for concern too, what happens when phones are lost, stolen, or hacked? Patients/physicians leave practices? What if the practice is acquired by another entity?

"Computer scientists will change medicine more than any doctor in the future."