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Steven Rosenzweig

Steven Rosenzweig, MD

Director, Office of Community Engagement; Professor


Department: Emergency Medicine

Specialties: Emergency Medicine, Hospice and Palliative Medicine

Education

  • MD - University of Pennsylvania School of Medicine

Awards & Honors

  • Golden Apple Award for Excellence in Teaching, Drexel University College of Medicine (2018, 2023)
2024 Philadelphia Magazine Top Doctors™

Training and Background – Dr. Steven Rosenzweig is a graduate of the University of Pennsylvania School of Medicine, completed residency in emergency medicine at Jefferson University Hospital, and is board certified in emergency medicine and in hospice and palliative medicine. He extended his medical training through the study of anthroposophical medicine, a European-based system of integrative medicine. Dr. Rosenzweig participated in professional training under the direction of Jon Kabat-Zinn, PhD, founder of the Stress Reduction Clinic at the University of Massachusetts Medical Center (UMMC), and has completed the Teacher Development Intensive in Mindfulness-Based Stress Reduction offered at the Stress Reduction Clinic at UMMC. He also completed professional certification training in Interactive Guided Imagery through the Academy for Guided Imagery. He is past founding medical and academic director of the Thomas Jefferson University Center of Integrative Medicine, which opened its doors in 1998. He is the founding chair of the Integrative Medicine Special Interest Group for the American Academy of Hospice and Palliative Medicine.

Clinical Practice – Dr. Rosenzweig's clinical practice is independent of Drexel University College of Medicine. He has maintained a private practice in integrative and palliative medicine since 2007. He also is an attending physician on the Palliative Care Service of Abington Hospital–Jefferson Health.

  • Named "Top Doctor" by Philadelphia magazine (2024)

Clinical Services

Integrative medicine, Palliative medicine, Mindfulness

Internships

  • Emergency Medicine - Jefferson University Hospital

Residencies

  • Emergency Medicine - Jefferson University Hospital

Steven Rosenzweig, MD, is director of the Office of Community Engagement and a professor in the Department of Emergency Medicine at Drexel University College of Medicine. Dr. Rosenzweig's work focuses on the "professional formation" of medical students: the process by which medical students develop psychologically, morally and spiritually into physicians who have the capacity to provide compassionate and excellent care. This includes his work in the following areas:

Professionalism – Dr. Rosenzweig directs the longitudinal Professionalism Curriculum. This is a curriculum that weaves throughout the fours year of medical school and includes components of required courses and stand-alone modules. Dr. Rosenzweig also chairs the Professionalism Remediation Advisory Board and directs professionalism remediation.

Bioethics and Humanities – Dr. Rosenzweig is director for our 20-hour Bioethics course that focuses on clinical ethics with a strong emphasis on self-awareness, moral responsibility and virtue. He also directs the school's Medical Humanities Program that offers a scholarly concentration in the humanities and also provides an enrichment program of eight 10-hour seminars and 12 grand-rounds each year.

Community Service Learning – Dr. Rosenzweig directs our required service learning courses in which students learn about social determinants of health and self-reflect on the challenges and rewards of providing service across lines of social difference. He is faculty advisor to the student run, free healthcare initiative, the Health Outreach Project (HOP).

Mindfulness and Compassion Training – Dr. Rosenzweig teaches three seminars each year for first and second year medical students. The 12-hour Mindfulness for Wellbeing seminar teaches foundational material from Mindfulness-Based Stress Reduction, including a full repertoire of mindfulness meditation practices. A cohort of first year students who complete the fall mindfulness seminar reinforce that learning by providing stress reduction education in the winter to fulfill their service learning requirement, serving children and adults among Philadelphia's vulnerable populations. The 10-hour compassion seminar explores compassion as the heart of medicine through reflection, group inquiry, cognitive neuroscience, spiritual writings, poetry and the arts. Students learn a range of contemplative and meditative practices that cultivate compassion, happiness and resilience.

Communication Skills - Dr. Rosenzweig has developed workshops offered each year to 4th year medical students on breaking bad news and discussing DNR orders. His Bioethics courses emphasize communication as a necessity for negotiating difficulty situations; for example he developed a standardized patient case that is used in the module on disclosing error.

Palliative Medicine – Throughout bioethics and again during the 4th year curriculum, Dr. Rosenzweig teaches content on compassionate patient care in advanced disease. A major emphasis is on physician self-awareness in negotiating the personally challenging terrain of death and dying.

Integrative Medicine – Dr. Rosenzweig lectures on complementary and alternative medicine, using this as an opportunity for students to reflect on health beliefs and explore philosophies of healing represented by alternative systems.

Publications

Published Full-Length Papers

"Mistletoe: From basic research to clinical outcomes in cancer and other indications"
Kotz M, Kienle GS, Feder G, Kaveri S and Rosenzweig S
Evidence-Based Complementary and Alternative Medicine (2014)

"Residents' and standardized patients' perspectives on empathy: issues of agreement"
Grosseman S, Hojat M, Duke PM, Rosenzweig S, Davis T and Novack, D
Patient Education and Counseling (2014) Accepted for publication.

"Empathy, self-reflection, and curriculum choice"
Grosseman S, Hojat M, Duke PM, Mennin S, Rosenzweig S and Novack D
Interdisciplinary Journal of Problem-based Learning, 8(2) (2014)

"Enhanced psychosocial well-being following participation in a mindfulness-based stress reduction program is associated with increased natural killer cell activity"
Fang CY, Reibel DK, Longacre ML, Rosenzweig S, Campbell DE and Douglas S
Journal of Alternative and Complementary Medicine, 16:5 pp 531-538 (2010)

"Mindfulness-based stress reduction for chronic pain conditions: Variation in treatment outcomes and role of home meditation practice"
Rosenzweig S, Greeson J, Reibel D, Green J, Jasser S and Beasley D
Journal of Psychosomatic Research, Jan;68(1):29-36 (2010)

"Integrative Medicine Research at an Academic Medical Center: Patient Characteristics and Health Related Quality of Life Outcomes"
Greeson J, Rosenzweig S, Halbert SC, Cantor IS, Keener MT and Brainard GC
Journal of Alternative and Complementary Medicine, 14:1-5 (2008)

"Mindfulness-Based Stress Reduction is Associated with Improved Glycemic Control in Type 2 Diabetes Mellitus: A Pilot Study"
Rosenzweig S, Reibel D, Greeson J, Jasser S and McMearty K
Alternative Therapies 13:36-37 (2007)

"Journal Peer Review in Integrative Medicine"
Hojat M and Rosenzweig S
Seminars in Integrative Medicine, 2:1-4 (2004)

"Mistletoe in cancer: A systematic review on controlled clinical trials"
Kienle GS, Berrino F, Bussing A, Portalupi E, Rosenzweig S and Kiene H
Eur J Med Res, 8:109-119 (2003)

"Mindfulness-based stress reduction lowers psychological distress in medical students"
Rosenzweig S, Reibel DK, Greeson JM, Hojat, M and Brainard GC
Teaching and Learning in Medicine, 15(2) (2003)

"Mindfulness-based stress reduction and health-related quality of life in a heterogeneous patient population"
Reibel DK, Greeson JM, Brainard GC and Rosenzweig S
Gen Hosp Psych, Vol 23;183-192 (2001)

"Assessing emergency medicine resident communication skills using videotaped patient encounters: gaps in inter-rater reliability"
Rosenzweig, S, Brigham TA, Snyder RD, Xu G and McDonald AJ
J Emerg Med., Vol 17, No. 2. (1999)

"Physician-patient communication in the emergency department, Part 3"
Rosenzweig S, Knopp R, Freas G, Viccellio P and Totten V (SAEM Taskforce on Physician-Patient Communication)
Acad Emerg Med, 4:72-77 (1997)

"Physician-patient communication in the emergency department, Part 2: Communication strategies for specific situations"
Totten VY, Knopp R, Helpern K, Hauswald M, Vicellio, P, Brennan J, Rosenzweig S and Jesionek P (SAEM Taskforce on Physician-Patient Communication)
Acad Emerg Med, 3:1146-1153 (1996)

"Physician-patient communication in the emergency department, Part 1"
Knopp R, Rosenzweig S, Bernstein E and Totten V
Acad Emerg Med, 3:1065-9 (1996)

"Paradigm reclaimed: On restoring context to science in medical education"
Rosenzweig S
Academic Medicine, 69(8) (1994)

"Emergency rapport"
Rosenzweig S
J Emerg Med., 11(6):775-8 (1993)

"Humanism in emergency medicine"
Rosenzweig S
Am J Emerg Med, 11(5):556-9 (1993)

"Teaching the art of emergency medicine"
Rosenzweig S
Ann Emerg Med, 20:71-76 (January 1991)

Book Chapters

"Complementary and Alternative Medicine"
Rosenzweig S
In: The Merck Manual Home Health Handbook Online, Robert S Porter (Ed.) (2011)

"Complementary and Alternative Medicine"
Rosenzweig S
In: The Merck Manual 19th Edition, Robert S Porter (Ed.), Merck Publishing (2011)

"Acute pain management in adults"
Rosenzweig S, Lopez B and Panzer E
In: The Clinical Practice of Emergency Medicine, Ann Harwood-Nuss (Ed.), J B Lippincott Co., Philadelphia (2009)

"Acute pain management in adults"
Rosenzweig S, Lopez B and Mines D
In: The Clinical Practice of Emergency Medicine, Ann Harwood-Nuss (Ed.), J B Lippincott Co., Philadelphia (2005)

"Emergencies"
Rosenzweig S (Contributor)
In: Clinician's Pocket Reference, Leonard G. Gomella and Steven A. Haist (Ed.), McGraw Hill (2002)

"Acute pain management in adults"
Rosenzweig S and Mines D
In: The Clinical Practice of Emergency Medicine, Ann Harwood-Nuss (Ed.), J B Lippincott Co., Philadelphia (2000)

"Anthroposophic perspectives in primary care"
Cantor I and Rosenzweig S
In: Primary Care Clinics in Office Practice (December 1997)

"The physician-patient encounter: An opportunity for healing"
Rosenzweig S
In: Case Studies in Emergency Medicine and Public Health, Edward Bernstein (ed.), Jones and Bartlett Inc. (1996)

"Acute pain management in adults"
Mines D and Rosenzweig S
In: The Clinical Practice of Emergency Medicine, Ann Harwood-Nuss (Ed.), J B Lippincott Co., Philadelphia (1995)

* This physician's clinical practice is independent of Drexel University.