A panel discussion with Drs. Lazarus, Goland, Campaigne, and Legato

An audience member asks a question during a panel discussion

The conference opened with presentations on the role of gender in the development of diabetes by Drs. Robin Goland and Barbara Campaigne. Pediatrician George Lazarus followed with a discussion of gender differences in the prevalence, severity, and ideal management of a number of diseases and conditions in children, including respiratory distress syndrome, autism, long QT syndrome, attention deficit disorder, and phenylketonuria (PKU). Drs. William Kannel, Lou Anne Beauregard, and conference director Dr. Marianne Legato then turned the focus to cardiovascular disease, with presentations on cardiovascular risk factors in men and women, gender and arrythmias, and the role of hormone replacement therapy in the treatment of disease in postmenopausal women. In the afternoon, speakers discussed gender differences in skin conditions and hair loss, seizure disorders, and post-traumatic stress syndrome.

Dr. William Kannel presents The Framingham Study

Dr. Legato and pediatrician Dr. George Lazarus

“The information presented at this conference is vitally important for health care providers to understand, so that more effective treatment strategies for men and women can be designed,” says Dr. Legato, professor of clinical medicine at Columbia University College of Physicians & Surgeons and founder and director of the Partnership for Women’s Health at Columbia.

All of the presentations given at the 2nd Annual Conference on Gender- Specific Medicine will be published as articles in The Journal of Gender- Specific Medicine, the official journal of the Partnership for Women’s Health at Columbia University. Founded in 1998, the Journal is committed to providing physicians with in-depth and clinically applicable data about the role of gender in human physiology and disease.