Devorah Judith Nazarian, MD
Devorah Judith Nazarian, MD
Associate Director, Emergency Department
NYC Health + Hospitals/Elmhurst
Battling COVID-19 in the Epicenter
As Associate Director of the Emergency Department at NYC Health + Hospitals/Elmhurst, Dr. Devorah Nazarian was part of the leadership that got the hospital through what The New York Times called “the epicenter of the epicenter” of the pandemic’s early gruesome grip on the city.
“Dr. Nazarian’s administrative roles at Elmhurst have allowed her to play an integral role in developing systems to ensure more efficient patient care,” said Dr. Jasmin Moshirpur, Chief Medical Officer at Elmhurst. “While on the ICU committee, she helped develop an ED-ICU admission policy for all hospital critical care units to streamline the admissions process. Her work through the LEAN project focused on modifying the Emergency Department critical care area structure and layout to improve efficiency and reduce delay in patient care.”
Dr. Nazarian’s time at Elmhurst has overlapped the hospital winning many awards, while she still finds time to develop and write more than 35 clinical policies, lecture across the country and internationally and draft policy statements to practicing emergency physicians – all published in the Annals of Emergency Medicine and the National Guideline Clearinghouse (she started developing clinical policies as a resident). It helps that, just as she has served at Elmhurst since 2000, she worked as an Associate Professor of Emergency Medicine at Icahn School of Medicine at Mount Sinai from 2000 to 2020.
“The idea that I can be involved in improving someone’s life at their most vulnerable time has always given me tremendous satisfaction,” said Dr. Nazarian. “Now, decades later, my sentiment has not changed. I am thankful I chose the right profession years ago.”
She continued: “Being able to say that you’ve helped someone through their most difficult times was something that made me feel good about myself. People say it’s very altruistic, but it has its selfish side too. We feel good doing it.”