Dr. Lara Marcuse: “The Doctor and the Teenager
Mia is a teenager who was hospitalized for treatment of what appeared to be a severe psychotic break. And for the next six weeks, the news seemed to get worse as a more ominous diagnosis emerged — and with it the specter of death. For Lara Marcuse, MD, Assistant Professor of Neurology at the Icahn School of Medicine at Mount Sinai, who treated Mia during her hospitalization, those weeks were filled with tension and anxiety that deepened as she worried that the teenager might not survive her sudden illness. “If I had developed this at Mia’s age,,” said Marcuse, who is 44, “I would either be dead, in a coma or in a state psychiatric center.” Instead Mia, now 18, has fully recovered. She recently had a part in her high school play, is anticipating graduation and looking forward to entering college in September. Learn more