New York City-based NYC Health + Hospitals/Harlem, chief of gastroenterology Joan Culpepper-Morgan, MD, and CEO Georges Leconte have earned a Scopy award from the American College of Gastroenterology.
The award recognizes a video the system produced last year that followed Mr. Leconte on camera as he prepped for and underwent a routine colonoscopy.
In the award-winning video, Dr. Culpepper-Morgan performs a routine colonoscopy on Mr. Leconte to demonstrate the ease and safety of the procedure.
The video begins with Mr. Leconte's preoperative appointment and shows how he prepares for the procedure by adhering to a light diet. The final scene shows the patient's arrival, anesthesia journey, procedure and post-operative care.
The video was intended to encourage New Yorkers ages 45 to 75 to get screened for colon cancer, according to a Jan. 23 press release from the health system.
Colorectal cancer is the second-leading cause of cancer death in New York City, and African Americans are 20% more likely to get colon cancer and 40% more likely to die from it than most other groups.
The NYC Health + Hospitals system offers colonoscopies and at-home fecal immunochemical tests, which are easier and less invasive, to help prevent colon cancer or find it early when it is more treatable.