Dr. Robert Finkelstein is an Assistant Attending Physician in the Divisions of Pediatric Critical Care and Pediatric Emergency Medicine at New York-Presbyterian Hospital/Weill Cornell Medical Center and is an Assistant Professor of Pediatrics at the Weill Cornell Medical College.

Dr. Finkelstein received his medical degree from the McGill University Faculty of Medicine.  He completed his residency at Yale-New Haven Hospital/Yale University School of Medicine, and a fellowship in Pediatric Critical Care Medicine at the Massachusetts General Hospital/Harvard Medical School, as well as a fellowship in Pediatric Emergency Medicine at Boston Medical Center/Boston University School of Medicine.  

During his fellowship training, Dr. Finkelstein developed an expertise in transport medicine and burn care working as a neonatal transport physician at Massachusetts General Hospital and in the Burn Intensive Care Unit at the Shriner’s Hospital for Children.  

His major interests include trauma, resuscitation, therapeutic hypothermia, and the use of point of care ultrasound for both procedures and diagnostics.  Since coming to Cornell, he has co-developed a regular multi-disciplinary hi-fidelity trauma simulation curriculum.  His teaching activities include participation in formal workshops on diagnostic ultrasound for medical students and procedural and resuscitation skills for pediatric residents, call–review with New-York Presbyterian Emergency Medical Services as well as being a member of the faculty for both the annual Pediatric Emergency Medicine Base Camp and the New York City Simulation Olympics.

His research has involved small and large animal models of trauma, hemorrhagic and septic shock, their treatment with histone deacetylase inhibitors, and the development of shelf-stable spray-dried plasma  to treat trauma associated coagulopathy.

Dr. Finkelstein also serves as the hospital representative for pediatric trauma for the Pediatric Emergency Department and is a member of the committee responsible for the certification of New-York Presbyterian Hospital/Weill Cornell Medical Center as an American College of Surgeons designated trauma center.