Health care reform has made important progress in ensuring that America's 70 million children have health care coverage with benefits that meet their unique health care needs. Families of pediatric patients from America's children's hospitals understand that access to timely, high-quality medical care can save lives. That's why two patients from NewYork-Presbyterian/Phyllis and David Komansky Center for Children's Health and NewYork-Presbyterian/Morgan Stanley Children's Hospital and their families have traveled to Washington, D.C., to discuss their personal health care stories with lawmakers who are carefully monitoring how health reform implementation rolls out.

Infertility affects about 7 million Americans -- that's about one in six couples during their childbearing years. There are many reasons for infertility, with equal chances it's his medical issue as it is hers. A new book, "A Baby at Last!: The Couples' Complete Guide to Getting Pregnant" (Fireside Books, Simon and Schuster), points the way for couples to get past the emotionally wrenching obstacle of infertility and finally bring home their bundle of joy.

One of the nation's leading cardiac surgeons, Dr. Craig R. Smith has been appointed chairman of the Department of Surgery at Columbia University College of Physicians and Surgeons and surgeon-in-chief at NewYork-Presbyterian Hospital/Columbia University Medical Center and its Vivian and Seymour Milstein Family Heart Center. Dr. Smith, the Calvin F. Barber Professor of Surgery, has served as interim chair of the department since 2007.

Physician-scientists from NewYork-Presbyterian Hospital/Columbia University Medical Center will present their latest research findings at the American Urological Association Annual Meeting in San Francisco, May 29 to June 3.

Dr. Antonio M. Gotto, Jr., the Stephen and Suzanne Weiss Dean of Weill Cornell Medical College, has announced the appointment of Dr. Carol Storey-Johnson as Senior Associate Dean for Education at the Medical College. In this position, Dr. Storey-Johnson will oversee the academic program for Weill Cornell, one of the country’s leading medical schools.

Researchers at Columbia Presbyterian Medical Center report that women who delay childbearing increase their likelihood that their male babies will have hypospadias, a congenital anomaly that occurs when the penile urethra develops abnormally, leaving the urethral opening on the bottom side of the penis.

Dr. Selina Chen-Kiang, Professor of Pathology at Weill Cornell Medical College and the leader of a research team on multiple myeloma based at New York Weill Cornell Medical Center, was recently named "Researcher of the Year" by the Leukemia and Lymphoma Society.

Dix P. Poppas has been awarded the prestigious Edwin Beer Fellowship by The New York Academy of Medicine. The award will support his research in unilateral ureteral obstruction (UUO), a condition that occurs in about 1% of the pediatric population.