Gregory A Joice, MD

Dr. Abraham Krikhely is the Chief of the Division of Minimally Invasive Surgery and Bariatric Surgery at NewYork-Presbyterian/Columbia University Irving Medical Center. Dr. Krikhely is an experienced minimally invasive surgeon specializing in robotic, laparoscopic and endoscopic approaches to metabolic and weight loss surgery, foregut surgery and general surgery. Dr. Krikhely obtained his undergraduate degree from NYU Stern School of Business and his medical degree from NYU School of Medicine. He stayed at NYU for his residency training in General Surgery, after which he completed his fellowship training in Bariatric and Minimally Invasive Surgery at Montefiore Medical Center. After building a successful practice focusing on bariatric and minimally invasive abdominal surgery as part of the full-time faculty at Maimonides Medical Center, he was recruited to join the faculty at Columbia University in 2015. He was an early proponent of robotic bariatric surgery and has also chaired the robotic surgery committee at Columbia since 2017, where he has contributed to building and growing the robotic surgery program at Columbia. He is also the program director for the Fellowship in Minimally Invasive Surgery and Bariatric Surgery at Columbia University. Dr. Krikhely has authored multiple textbook chapters on bariatric surgery, robotic surgery, and foregut surgery, given numerous lectures and proctored many surgeons on the use of robotic surgery.

Dr. Prager is Professor of Clinical Medicine, Director of Clinical Ethics and Chairman of the Medical Ethics Committee at Columbia University Medical Center. He spent two years in the Indian health Service practicing general medicine on the Cheyenne River Sioux Indian Reservation in South Dakota after his medical internship. Dr. Prager held clandestine medical clinics in the Soviet Union during a visit to Refuseniks in 1986, and later set up the first U.S. - Soviet medical student exchange program between Columbia P&S and the First Moscow Medical Academy. Dr. Prager has been a pulmonologist for over 35 years. He is heavily involved in teaching pulmonology and medical ethics to medical students, house officers and nurses. His writings on medicine and medical ethics have appeared in medical journals and textbooks as well as on the Op-Ed pages of The New York Times and The Wall Street Journal. Dr. Prager is a regular guest lecturer in Israel for the Ben Gurion University MD Program in International Health and Medicine in collaboration with Columbia University Health Sciences. He has received honors for his teaching, clinical expertise, contributions to organ donation, and medical humanism.