Recently recognized by Crain’s New York Business as a 2023 Notable Health Care Leader for his exceptional work and dedication to health care, Neil W. Schluger, M.D., is an internationally renowned pulmonologist. Dr. Schluger's leadership on the NYMC campus and at Westchester Medical Center, as the director of medicine, began in 2020. He distinguished himself as a clinician, researcher and educator, leading a department of more than 425 faculty members and teaching more than 800 medical students and residents. In 2021, Dr. Schluger took on the additional role of associate dean for clinical and translational research for the SOM.

Previously, Dr. Schluger served as chief of the division of Pulmonary, Allergy and Critical Care Medicine at Columbia University Irving Medical Center; professor of medicine, epidemiology and environmental health sciences; director of the Population and Global Health Track for the Scholars Projects Program; and co-director of the Programs in Education and Global and Population Health for the Vagelos College of Physicians and Surgeons at Columbia University.

Dr. Schluger’s influence expands well beyond the U.S., as he is a founder of the East Africa Training Initiative (EATI) in Pulmonary Medicine. The two-year fellowship training program in pulmonary and critical care medicine, which marked its tenth anniversary in 2023, is the first training program of its kind in Ethiopia and the broader East African region. Before the launch of EATI, Ethiopia had only one pulmonologist for its 110 million people. Thus far, the initiative graduated 18 specialists, including two pediatric pulmonologists and two physicians from Rwanda and Tanzania, who have assumed leadership roles at hospitals across East Africa.

Dr. Schluger has been an author or editor of several editions of the Tobacco Atlas, the definitive work describing the extent and consequences of the global epidemic of tobacco use, published by Vital Strategies and the American Cancer Society. 

During the COVID-19 pandemic, Dr. Schluger became a voice in the media on re-infection, long-term symptoms and the use of hydroxycholoroquine for treating COVID-19. He was senior author of the seminal article, “Observational Study of Hydroxychloroquine in Hospitalized Patients with COVID-19,” published in The New England Journal of Medicine, May 7, 2020. Dr. Schluger used data from an observational trial he led where 1,400 COVID-19 patients were given hydroxychloroquine and showed that there was no evidence that the drug had any benefit of the patient’s conditions. 

Dr. Schluger is the author of more than 200 articles, chapters and books. His work has been published in The New England Journal of Medicine, The Journal of the American Medical Association, The Lancet and The Lancet Respiratory Medicine, among other leading journals. Dr. Schluger is an associate editor of The American Journal of Respiratory and Critical Medicine. He is a past chair of the American Lung Association of New York and past chief scientific officer of the World Lung Foundation. 

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Education

• B.A., Harvard College
• M.D., University of Pennsylvania
• Residency, Internal Medicine, St. Luke's Hospital
• Pulmonary and Critical Care Medicine Fellowship, The New York Hospital/Cornell Medical Center

Research

Dr. Schluger’s research career has focused on several aspects of tuberculosis, including clinical trials, epidemiology, novel diagnostics, and host immune responses.  He has also focused on chronic lung disease in low-resource settings.

Publications

• Worku A, Haisch D, Parekh M, et. al. "Epidemiology and Outcomes of Critical Illness and Novel Predictors of Mortality in an Ethiopian Medical Intensive Care Unit." Journal of intensive care medicine, 39(8), (2024) 778-784. doi: 10.1177/08850666241233481
• Diel R, Schluger NW. "Long-term outcome of co-infection of COVID-19 and tuberculosis: the "cursed duet"." The European respiratory journal, 62(5), (2023) . pii: 2301881. doi: 10.1183/13993003.01881-2023
• Salerno MM, Burzynski J, Mangan JM, et. al. "Adverse events among persons with TB using in-person vs. electronic directly observed therapy." The international journal of tuberculosis and lung disease : the official journal of the International Union against Tuberculosis and Lung Disease, 27(11), (2023) 833-840. doi: 10.5588/ijtld.22.0594
• Huluka DK, Ashagrie AW, Gebremariam TH, et. al. "Strategic response to COVID-19 in Ethiopia." Public health action, 12(4), (2022) 191-194. doi: 10.5588/pha.22.0007
• Ashamo AY, Bekele A, Petrose A, et. al. "Assessment of hypertension and other factors associated with the severity of disease in COVID-19 pneumonia, Addis Ababa, Ethiopia: A case-control study." PloS one, 17(8), (2022) e0273012. doi: 10.1371/journal.pone.0273012
• Huluka DK, Etissa EK, Ahmed S, et. al. "Clinical Characteristics and Treatment Outcomes of COVID-19 Patients at Eka Kotebe General Hospital, Addis Ababa, Ethiopia." The American journal of tropical medicine and hygiene, 107(2), (2022) 252-259. doi: 10.4269/ajtmh.21-1270
• Schluger NW, Prager K. "A License to Practice Medicine Cannot Be a License to Harm." The American journal of medicine, 135(8), (2022) e229-e230. doi: 10.1016/j.amjmed.2022.01.051

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Memberships and Affiliations

Dr. Schluger serves as a member of the board of trustees at Vital Strategies, a global not-for-profit organization devoted to public health issues.