Chief Residents 2023-2024
Chrissy Cherenfant, MD
Chrissy was born and raised in Queens, NY. She attended Sophie Davis School of Biomedical Education at The City College of New York, a highly competitive seven-year BS/MD program. Graduating summa cum laude with a bachelor’s degree in biomedical sciences and a minor in psychology, Chrissy completed her final years of medical school at New York University School of Medicine. There, she decided to pursue anesthesiology because it fulfilled her interests in critical thinking, physiology, and doing procedures, while also executing patient comfort, safety, and satisfaction.
When she is away from work, Dr. Cherenfant enjoys spending time with family indulging in Haitian food, trying different restaurants in the city with friends, walking along the East River, cooking different Trader Joe meals, and making music playlists. When she graduates, she will pursue a pediatric anesthesiology fellowship.
Jacob Lurie, MD, MPH
Jacob Lurie grew up outside of Worcester, MA and chose medicine after experiences he had during his undergraduate years at Brandeis University (where he graduated magna cum laude and with a triple major and double minor!) while volunteering in Honduras, Ghana, and Timor-Leste. During this work abroad, Jacob was immersed with vulnerable populations, and was exposed to diseases like leprosy, TB, and untreated and unrecognized chronic pain that were extremely rare in developed countries. He was drawn towards being a physician in order to advocate for these patients. In medical school at Icahn School of Medicine at Mount Sinai (MD/MPH, with Distinction in Research and Distinction in Global Health), Jacob continued global health pursuits and researched disaster-stricken areas of rural Japan where earthquake, tsunami, and radiation fallout had occurred. When he realized that he could also pursue impactful global health research within anesthesiology, he was sold.
Upon graduation, Dr. Lurie will pursue a chronic pain medicine fellowship because it fulfills much of what he loves about anesthesiology. It also allows him to have his own patients, perform interventions in a cutting-edge advancing field, and vitally important to him, continue to work in global health which he describes as being his north star.
Mike Yamakawa, MD
Mike Yamakawa grew up in Chicago, IL. After attending Johns Hopkins University where he graduated with honors, he became part of a small start-up pharmaceutical team in Baltimore that brought a life-saving pediatric medication from trials to FDA approval. He quickly realized that he wanted to be part of the diagnostic and direct therapeutic process for patients and eventually matriculated at the University of Illinois at Chicago for medical school. Outside of the regular academic program, he spent a large portion of his time in an ophthalmology lab and innovation center where he designed and built a cost-efficient, infrared-enabled, non-mydriatic, portable fundoscope with a classmate. Mike made a sharp turn at the end of his MS3 year in applying into anesthesiology after he witnessed the planning that goes into taking care of sick patients in the OR.
Outside of work, he is known to dog walk, host birthday parties, and cook dinner for his co-residents. He has also enjoys taking his peers to gyms in NYC for HIIT workouts and indoor bouldering. Mike believes in first knowing better, and then doing better. He wants to extend this satisfaction through his residency, fellowship, and, of course, the rest of his long career.
A Message From the Chief Residents
A warm welcome from the anesthesiology residents of NewYork-Presbyterian Hospital/Weill Cornell Medical Center! We are pleased that you are interested in learning more about our program and what makes it such a special place to train.
Our four-year categorical training program resides on the Upper East Side of Manhattan, sitting next to the East River (which is easily viewed from the hallways of our main operating rooms) and just a few blocks away from Central Park. We are affiliated with three world-renowned hospitals: NewYork-Presbyterian, Memorial Sloan Kettering Cancer Center, and Hospital for Special Surgery. Each of these hospital systems is ranked among the best in the country, and they provide unparalleled training grounds to our residents.
Our residents begin practicing anesthesia at the start of their training. Beginning with intern year, our residents rotate on three consecutive months of general anesthesia, which acclimates them to the operating room and helps reinforce foundational concepts in anesthesiology. During this time, interns work closely with senior residents and attendings to formulate an anesthetic plan and carry it to fruition. Autonomy is gradually provided to our residents over the course of intern year, and by their final month of anesthesia, our interns take call with our more experienced residents. Our interns rapidly improve their skills in airway management, intravenous and arterial catheter placement, and their ability to conduct ultrasound-guided procedures, such as transthoracic echocardiography. Interns participate in a robust educational curriculum comprising near-daily lectures, simulations, and structured group learning opportunities. Our interns meet many of their co-residents and anesthesia attendings prior to becoming CA-1s, and they overwhelmingly feel that their anesthesia experience is not only enjoyable and exciting, but also highly educational and successful in preparing for CA-1 year.
Following intern year, our CA-1s commence their first full year of anesthesia training. During their CA-1 year (as well as CA-2 and CA-3), our residents participate in weekly, class-specific lectures in addition to weekly case conference sessions, as well as frequent ultrasound workshops and operating room simulations. In addition, our CA-1s practice regional anesthesia and acute pain medicine at Hospital for Special Surgery as well as Weill Cornell, performing advanced extremity and truncal nerve blocks and local anesthetic catheter placements; they practice advanced critical care medicine rotations, such as the cardiothoracic intensive care unit, managing patients receiving extracorporeal membrane oxygenation (ECMO) and those with ventricular assist devices (VADs); they practice obstetric anesthesia at the brand new Alexandra Cohen Hospital for Women and Newborns, placing epidurals in the labor and delivery suite and caring for high-risk peripartum patients; they practice pediatric anesthesia and advanced thoracic anesthesia at Memorial Sloan Kettering, caring for critically ill and complex patient populations; they practice advanced airway management, participating in resuscitations and airway management in the emergency department of a Level 1 Adult Trauma Center; and they practice neurosurgical anesthesia, caring for patients with complex intracranial and spinal pathologies, burn anesthesia at one of the busiest burn centers in the United States, and general anesthesia, sharpening their basic anesthesia skills and gaining comfort in the operating room.
As residents matriculate to their CA-2 and CA-3 years, they take on more responsibility and decision-making in the care of more acutely ill and complex patients at Weill Cornell, Hospital for Special Surgery, and Memorial Sloan Kettering, and they become capable of caring for the sickest and most tenuous patients in these hospitals.
In addition to our comprehensive clinical curriculum, including didactics on a variety of topics related to anesthesia, our residents also have a number of exciting clinical and non-clinical opportunities available through our education and research partners. Clinical electives available to senior residents include a veterinary anesthesia elective at the Cornell University (Ithaca, NY) campus, a global health elective in Rwanda, and additional trauma anesthesia experiences at Shock Trauma in Baltimore, MD. Many residents also participate in education initiatives, for example, in quality improvement and environmental sustainability projects, and in clinical research, including through the Center for Perioperative Outcomes. Additionally, the program supports research-track residents through the Van Poznak Scholars Program; scholars have the opportunity to collaborate across multiple institutions, including Rockefeller University, Cornell Tech, and our clinical partners.
At Weill Cornell, we take enormous pride in practicing medicine that is not only evidence-based, but also patient-centered and humanistic. We are proud of our thoughtful, passionate, diverse, and supportive residents who routinely go above and beyond to help our patients. We are novelists and poets, scientists and adventurers, professional athletes and entrepreneurs. We are very proud of the Weill Cornell Anesthesiology residency program, and we are thrilled to welcome our new intern class, the Class of 2027!
Chrissy Cherenfant, MD
Jacob Lurie, MD, MPH
Mike Yamakawa, MD