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BROOKLYN WEEKLY, SEPTEMBER 15, 2019
BUS INES S , B ROOKLYN S T Y LE
Dr. Enrico Ascher provides the best vascular care
We don’t have to travel to Manhattan
to get the best vascular medical
care because we have Dr. Enrico
Ascher, Chief of Vascular and Endovascular
Surgery at NYU Langone
Hospital-Brooklyn, and founder of
the Vascular Institute of New York.
Dr. Ascher is an internationally
recognized vascular surgeon who pioneered
several techniques that are
now utilized worldwide. In addition
to being one of the most experienced
surgeons in this country with over
25,000 procedures and operations performed
over a 3 decade span he finds
time to author and co-author over 300
scientific articles in addition to be the
Chief-editor of a classic textbook in
vascular surgery. His enormous contributions
to the minimally invasive
management of vascular diseases
including aortic aneurysms, stroke
prevention, wound care, varicose
veins and angioplasty and stenting
for PAD have not gone unnoticed. Dr.
Ascher is the only surgeon in the tristate
region to be elected as President
of the Society for Vascular Surgery as
well as The World Federation of Vascular
Societies. During his tenure as
leader of these societies Dr. Ascher
was able to help shape the specialty
and reached out to the medical community
in a partnership to improve
the vascular health of the US population.
Dr. Ascher conceived and develop
the first clinical guidelines for
the management of vascular diseases
and he is recognized by his peers as a
superb surgeon with tremendous talent.
As an example of one of his creative
contributions one can describe
his technique of performing balloon
angioplasty and stenting (in patients
who experience pain in the legs upon
walking) without the use of potentially
harmful contrast material and
with no exposure to radiation!
Dr. Ascher also developed the
mini-incision carotid surgery where
a life threatening plaque can be safely
removed from the artery via one inch
small cut instead of 5-7 inch incision
in the neck. “We have the lowest rate
of complications in the country since
I have not had a single major issue
with hundreds of patient treated with
this technique” - says Dr. Ascher
His groundbreaking techniques
have been adapted worldwide as they
causes less trauma to the patient.
Limb salvage is yet another field
in which Dr. Ascher has earned acclaim.
“We are the first to create a comprehensive
care plan that has vascular
medical specialists and surgeons
working together to treat patients,”
he says. For the most part, vascular
surgeons elsewhere work separately
from vascular medicine physicians,
he says. But by working as a team,
the patient is assured of optimum,
unbiased treatment.
Patients from New York City and
surrounding states have sought Dr.
Ascher’s services, after being told by
other institutions that their limbs
could not be salvaged, and that amputation
was the only option. Yet,
Dr. Ascher and his team were able
to transform their lives by utilizing
techniques they developed to save
the limbs.
“These patients are now walking
on their own two feet,” he says.
Research, studying, and learning
are Dr. Ascher’s passions. He
was the first to perform bypass to the
plantar arteries of the foot, and this
is now widely considered standard
procedure for limb salvage.
Swelling of the legs is a common
problem that causes tremendous
pain, inhibiting lifestyles. This is
another area in which the Vascular
Institute can help, as Dr. Ascher has
published extensively on the subject
of varicose veins. He and his team of
board certified vascular specialists
have performed more than 15,000
laser procedures for the treatment
of varicose veins and leg swelling,
offering several different devices to
customize treatment plans for the
patients who come to his Vascular
Center for relief of symptoms or
for aesthetic reasons. He notes that
swelling of the legs can be caused
by veins that are not visible, so a
thorough examination is really important
to detect the cause of these
problems and to fix them to obtain a
meaningful result.
More than 20 years ago Dr. Ascher
was helping people with aortic
aneurysms — ballooning of the arteries
in the stomach or chest.
“We are so comfortable with
the new, modern techniques, we
are sending patients home the same
day. Just 5 years ago we were keeping
patients for at least 2 days in the
hospital,” he says. “They leave with
a small puncture in the groin, go
home with no pain, and have dinner
with their families.”
This potentially life-threatening
issue is more common than people
realize, he says, and is often found
accidentally when patients undergo
ultrasounds or CAT scans.
“When it becomes painful, these
aneurysms (ballooning of the arteries)
are ready to pop with critical
consequences. So it’s better to fix
them when they achieve a certain
size,” he says.
Notably, the Vascular Institute
was the first wound care center in
New York, and remains one of the
busiest wound care centers in the
area.D
r. Ascher’s esteemed staff includes
Dr. Anil Hingorani, Dr. Natalie
Marks, Dr. Sareh Rajaee, and
Eleanora Iadgarova, a nurse practitioner.
The practice is open every day,
including weekends, and the staff
can always find an opening to ac -
commodate patients who need immediate
treatment, says the doctor.
Vascular Institute of New York
960 50th St.between Ninth and 10th
avenues in Borough Park, (718) 438–
3800, www.vascularnyc.com. Open
every day, 8 am – 5 pm. Additional
locations: 9920 Fourth Ave. in Bay
Ridge; 5801 Woodside Ave., Queens;
97-32 63rd Rd., Queens; 432 E. 149th
St. in the Bronx.
BY ELISSA ESHER
The king of Mill Basin retail
is sharing its power!
Kings Plaza Shopping
Center celebrated a partnership
with Con Edison
on Tuesday to prevent
blackouts by providing
energy generated by the
mall’s in-house power
plants to surrounding
neighborhoods.
The retail complex is
equipped with four natural
gas powered Deutz
engines that generate
12 megawatts of energy,
which — while less than
one tenth of a percent of
the 1.21 gigawatts needed
to power the time machine
from “Back to the Future”
— is twice as much power
required to fuel the shopping
center’s more than
120 stores.
So the honchos at
Macerich — the real estate
investment trust that owns
Kings Plaza — decided to
partner with Con Edison
to hook the mall’s power
plant up to the city’s grid,
giving the utility company
the option of purchasing
power from the mall and
thereby tripling the capacity
of Brooklyn’s Demand
Response Program, which
relieves stress during peak
electrical demand.
“We are powered by
roughly six megawatts,
we’re giving the six we
don’t use back to the community.”
said Joseph
Venne, Vice President of
Operations at Macerich.
“Now, hopefully, we can
look forward to blackouts
not happening nearly as
often in the future.”
While the partnership
was celebrated earlier this
week, Kings Plaza generators
actually began supplying
the city with power
on June 1, proving the extra
supply wasn’t enough
to prevent the days long
blackouts that struck
southern Brooklyn neighborhoods,
including Canarsie,
Mill Basin, and
Marine Park in late July, a
fact Venne attribute to the
brutal heat wave that proceeded
the loss of power.
“We know how important
energy is with the outages,
this summer being
more severe than most,”
he said.
Still, it’s better than
nothing, and Mill Basin
Councilman Alan Maisel
applauded the mall
for sharing its juice with
Brooklyn.
“King’s plaza, over the
past few years, has really
tried to make themselves
part of the community,”
said Maisel. “This
is a great example of that.
They’re being a good
neighbor.”
POWER TO THE PEOPLE!
Kings Plaza hooks in-house power plant to the grid to prevent blackouts
Executives from Con Edison, Macerich, Source One and Veolia attended the celebratory event at King’s
Plaza this Tuesday Photos by Derrick Watterson
The Con Edison independent power plant connects to King’s Plaza
to bring additional energy to Brooklyn.
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