Pediatric Attending
NYC Health + Hospitals/Gotham Health, Cumberland

The Great Communicator

Dr. Magalie Pierre-Louis exemplifies some of the most important qualities of a doctor who practices in a community as diverse as the one she serves at NYC Health + Hospitals/Gotham Health, Cumberland. “I think every doctor should have compassion and be considerate of the particular needs and cultures of their patients,” said Dr. Pierre-Louis. Those aspects of her approach are one reason she’s earned a reputation among both staff and patients for being a great communicator.

Dr. Pierre-Louis, a pediatrician who grew up in Haiti, cares for many families who speak her native Creole. Her Spanish-speaking patients also appreciate her ability to talk with them in their first language. It’s all in service of Dr. Pierre-Louis’s fierce commitment to making Cumberland’s pediatric clinic a place that fosters strong personal and therapeutic relationships between staff and patients.

“I always wanted to be a pediatrician, since my own childhood,” Dr. Pierre-Louis says. She immigrated to New York when she was 18 and began pursuing her dream at City College. She went on to medical school at Temple University, returned to New York for her pediatric residency at Albert Einstein, and spent 14 years as an attending pediatrician at clinics in Brooklyn before joining the Cumberland team in 2007.

Colleagues laud Dr. Pierre-Louis as a strong advocate for her patients who is always seeking innovative ways to deliver the best care to her young patients and their families. Sometimes it’s as simple as going the extra yard to connect with them— calling an adolescent patient herself to find out why they missed an appointment, for instance.

She recalls a teenage boy with a subtle abnormality that led her to refer him to a specialist, who diagnosed an unusual genetic condition, called Klinefelter’s Syndrome that can affect various aspects of development. “As a result of my discovery he had the proper workup and treatment,” she says. “That was a case where I was proud that I could really make a difference in my patient’s life.”

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