As part of our “Meet Yale Internal Medicine” series, today’s featured physician is Stephen Baldassarri, MD, MHS, assistant professor of medicine (pulmonary, critical care, and sleep medicine).
Stephen Baldassarri, MD, is fascinated by the link between the mind and body. During his fellowship at Yale School of Medicine (YSM), he was struck by how many patients he saw in the intensive care unit (ICU) whose medical illnesses were caused by this very connection.
“I noticed a lot of my critically ill patients were dealing with consequences of addiction. There were people with respiratory failure related to chronic obstructive pulmonary disease (COPD), or lung cancer from years of cigarette smoking. People were coming in with liver failure from heavy alcohol use, some of them very young. People were coming in with opioid overdoses,” explained Baldassarri. “I wanted to understand why this was happening and what I could do to help prevent critical illness and improve peoples’ lives. That led me into neuroscience research focused on addiction.”
Growing up in Westchester County, N.Y., Baldassarri learned many life lessons through his involvement with competitive youth ice hockey, which he credits as the start of his medical education.
“I learned so much through youth sports. You get to meet people from different backgrounds, and you interact with different personalities. You develop a strong work ethic and attention to detail. You learn how to work with others, and how to be part of a team. I was very lucky to have these experiences, and they have helped me a lot in my medical career,” explained Baldassarri. “The clinical care, research, and educational efforts I’m deeply involved with all depend on building great teams and developing relationships based on mutual respect.”
He continued his hockey career while getting his undergraduate degree at Williams College, and then headed off to medical school at Boston University School of Medicine. After rotating through the various specialties, he was drawn to internal medicine.
“I enjoyed the challenge of internal medicine,” said Baldassarri. “I liked thinking through complex problems and really working with people in a deep and meaningful way.”
He was very happy to pursue internal medicine residency training at Yale New Haven Hospital, the 1541-bed two-campus teaching hospital of YSM, where he ultimately decided on his sub-specialty, pulmonary and critical care medicine.
“I was drawn into pulmonary and critical care medicine for a number of reasons. The field encompasses a lot of knowledge in different areas and requires holistic care of patients and their families. You have to maintain that breadth of knowledge, be flexible, and be able to think and function well in a high-stress environment.
While working in the ICU, Baldassarri works to understand the patient holistically, and tries to put their illness into a larger context, a challenging aspect of the job.
“I listen to the patient and to their family to understand the patient better, not just in terms of their illness, but in the whole context of their background and journey. Who are they when they’re not in the hospital? What were they capable of doing before? What's the course of their illness? Have they been chronically ill for a long time or did they just get sick yesterday? These details really matter,” he said.
ICU physicians can spend a lot of time counseling family members and working through goals of care, and Baldassarri believes that he can make a positive impact.
“Helping a family member and patient through the difficulty and stress of critical illness, and sometimes the dying process, can be very challenging. The way we communicate and the way we empathize with our patients and families can make a big difference,” he said. “The ICU is a very difficult place for patients or families to be, so I try to be a strong and steady presence and advocate for my patients and their family members.”
His “long journey” to New Haven has led to him staying here for over a decade, through residency, fellowship, and now as a member of the Yale faculty. And he is happy at Yale.
“For me, it comes down to the people and the environment that we have here. We have people who are incredibly bright and engaging, people who are kind and dedicated, and work hard and want to work together. It's a very collaborative environment,” Baldassarri said.
This collegial atmosphere led Baldassarri to partner across departments and schools throughout Yale University. He is currently funded by a Career Development Award from the National Institute on Drug Abuse, which provides support to build an interdisciplinary research program focused on addiction. This year, he became board-certified in addiction medicine in addition to his other specialty areas. Through his partnerships and collaborations, he pursues human-subject addiction research through a diverse array of methods including neuroimaging, clinical trials, and observational studies. He hopes to develop a better understanding of addiction mechanisms, treatments, and outcomes.
“I discovered amazing groups of people here that are in different departments working on addiction research. I am lucky to have great mentors and collaborators – they are general internists, medical specialists in addiction, emergency, pulmonary, critical care, sleep, and laboratory medicine, psychiatrists, psychologists, biomedical engineers, chemists, lawyers, and public health experts,” he said.
Through building interdisciplinary collaborations across Yale, he hopes to increase the impact of scientific discoveries, and come up with novel insights. “It’s important to break down silos to expand our discoveries and capabilities. I want to build and be part of great teams,” says Baldassarri. He acknowledges how much he has learned through these partnerships and different perspectives and his influential mentors.
Two particularly influential people in his life are his parents, Jeanette and Ken. “My parents gave me all the love and support I needed, and made it possible for me to grow and appreciate life. They worked very hard to give me opportunities. They both came from working class backgrounds and were the first members of their families to attend college. They both went on to get graduate degrees in psychology, and they inspired in me a love of learning and teaching.” Baldassarri is the first MD in his family.
His parents’ psychology backgrounds influenced his fascination with the brain, which drives his research interests. In recent years, one area of addiction research he has pursued has been nicotine and electronic cigarettes. He acknowledges that there is much to learn.
“E-cigarette use has been rising among youth and young adult populations, while conventional cigarette smoking continues to decline. We might see new health harms in young people and never-smokers, and possibly also harm reduction or health benefits in adult cigarette smokers who switch completely to e-cigarettes. With ongoing research, we're going to learn a lot more over the upcoming years,” said Baldassarri.
He remains open-minded about the path his career might take. “I can’t answer the ‘Where will you be in 10 years?’ question because I don't really know. I’m focused more on the journey rather than the destination. I’m hoping to learn new things, share ideas with other people, and work with great teams. Those are my goals. And I'd love to be here. I think Yale is a great place. I've grown and learned a lot here.”
The Section of Pulmonary, Critical Care and Sleep Medicine is one of the eleven sections within YSM’s Department of Internal Medicine. To learn more about Yale-PCCSM, visit PCCSM’s website, or follow them on Facebook and Twitter.