Mark G. Lebwohl, MD, MSH '82

Biography

OPEN TO ALL OPPORTUNITIES 

When Mark G. Lebwohl, MD, MSH ‘82 came to Mount Sinai as an intern from Harvard Medical School, he was planning on becoming a cardiologist, and had never taken a full dermatology elective.  He signed up for dermatology as his first elective as a second year internal medicine resident at Mount Sinai. During that rotation, he encountered a fascinating patient with a rare genetic disorder that was associated with premature heart disease and blindness from macular degeneration at an early age. The patient had a loud heart murmur of mitral valve prolapse, which had never been reported before in patients with that condition. 

Dr. Lebwohl was able to find a small group of patients with the condition pseudoxanthoma elasticum (PXE), the majority of whom also had mitral valve prolapse, and he reported his findings in the New England Journal of Medicine. He realized that his internal medicine background would be enormously helpful in dermatology, and was attracted to the field by the extraordinary array of complex skin diseases and the challenge of surgical dermatologic procedures.  
 

Dr. Lebwohl is now professor and chairman of the Department of Dermatology at The Icahn School of Medicine at Mount Sinai. He has seen over 1000 patients with PXE, and helped find the genetic defect in that disorder.  With the help of a number of federal grants, his team believes they will soon have a treatment to prevent the numerous complications of PXE that include premature cardiovascular disease and blindness.

Looking Towards the Future

When Dr. Lebwohl started on the faculty at Mount Sinai in 1983, he had a new and very small department with a clinical faculty consisting of himself and the chairman.  Mount Sinai did not have a significant dermatopathology division or a surgical division, had no funded research, and clinical income of less than $100,000 annually.  

With the help of many on Mount Sinai’s voluntary faculty, a number of recruits, and with the help of Dr. Nathan Kase and hospital leadership, the Department has grown to be the largest in the country with nearly 300 total faculty, 26 residents, a large dermatopathology division, and many well-funded investigators. 

Dr. Lebwohl, with his colleagues, has been able to create one of the top ranked departments of dermatology in the nation. He  credits the excellence of his Mount Sinai colleagues in medical dermatology, surgical dermatology, cosmetic dermatology, clinical and basic dermatology research, noninvasive imaging, and dermatopathology.