Nimrod Goldshtrom, MD

Monica Velasco is certified by the American Academy of Nurse Practitioners as a Family Nurse Practitioner. She received her Doctorate in Nursing Practice from Columbia University School of Nursing in New York, NY. Previously, she received her Master of Science in Nursing and her Bachelor of Science in Nursing from the University of Miami, FL. She is a member of Sigma Theta Tau International Nursing Honor Society and the Transplant Nurses Association. She earned many awards and honors during her clinical and academic career, including the Mary Dickey Lindsay '45 Nursing Scholar, 2013 from Columbia University School of Nursing. She has co-authored numerous transplant publications and has served as an international guest speaker. She is considered an expert in the field of Intestinal and Multivisceral Transplant.Monica's nursing experience spans over 25 years. She began her transplant career in 1998 at the University of Miami, where she worked for 13 years as the Program Manager for the Pediatric Liver and Intestinal Transplant Division and Senior Transplant Clinical Coordinator. During her time there, she helped grow the Liver and Intestinal Transplant Program into one of the top transplant centers in the world. In 2010, she was recruited by the Center of Liver Disease and Abdominal Transplantation at Columbia University Medical Center in New York. Currently, she is the Program Manager for the Intestinal and Ex-Vivo Transplant Division and is a Senior Transplant Clinical Coordinator. She has over two decades of clinical experience in pediatrics, taking care of complex liver and intestinal transplant patients. She has vast experience working with nutritionally challenged patients who require enteral and parenteral nutrition. She is a co-investigator on numerous research projects in the areas of liver and intestinal transplantation.She holds a Clinical Faculty Position at Columbia University School of Nursing, where she serves as an Assistant Professor of Nursing, Clinical Preceptor and Portfolio Advisor for their Doctorate Program.Fluent in SpanishVisit The Center for Liver Disease and Transplantation at columbiasurgery.org/liver

Dr. Hong Ma is an assistant professor of radiology at Columbia University Irving Medical Center. She is board certified in diagnostic radiology, nuclear medicine, and nuclear cardiology.Dr. Ma completed her diagnostic radiology residency training at Mount Sinai West in 2019 and a body fellowship at Columbia University Irving Medical Center in 2020. Prior to her diagnostic radiology training, she completed a three-year residency in nuclear medicine at Montefiore Medical Center in 2015, and a one-year nuclear oncology fellowship training at Memorial Sloan-Kettering Cancer Center in 2016. Dr. Ma has a well-rounded skillset needed to interpret chest and abdominal diseases on multiple modalities, including MRI, CT, ultrasound, fluoroscopy, and radiography. She also has experience in interpreting PET-CT, general nuclear medicine studies, and nuclear stress tests. Dr. Ma gained diverse research experience in prostate cancer, diabetes, and fetal MRI from two master's graduate programs, postdoctoral research, and throughout clinical trainings.

Dr. Lawrence Schwartz is the James Picker Professor and Chairman for the Department of Radiology at Columbia University Medical Center. He also is the Chief of the Radiology Service and Attending Physician at New York-Presbyterian Hospital. Dr. Schwartz earned his medical degree at Boston University School of Medicine, completed an internship at Winthrop University Hospital, a residency at the New York Hospital - Cornell University Medical College and a fellowship specializing in Cross Sectional Imaging (MRI/US/CT) at Brigham and Women's Hospital and Harvard Medical School. He is a diplomate of the American Board of Radiology and a member of the American Roentgen Ray Society, Radiological Society of North America, International Society for Magnetic Resonance in Medicine, New York Roentgen Ray Society, Society for Computer Applications in Radiology and a Fellow at the International Cancer Imaging Society.