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Whole Foods Market Princeton, N.J.
Dr. Cohen and her sons with Dr. Andrew Weil, January 2014
fter graduating from medical school, Aly Cohen got a job with a rheumatology practice in Monroe Township, New Jersey. It was a conventional office, where patients got about 15 minutes of face time with physicians, who prescribed the usual drugs for their problems with arthritis and immune system disorders. Though Cohen loved the work at first, the “in and out” schedule and the lack of focus on factors like diet and stress began to wear on her. “It went against my grain,” she says. “I tried to make the best of it, but I just didn’t like what I was doing.” A few years and two babies later, Cohen, a 1991 graduate of Princeton Day School, decided to take the leap and open her own practice. By integrating the best of her traditional training and experience with a more holistic approach to medical care, and focusing on women’s health, she has created a model that she continues to refine through constant research and education. Her rheumatology, integrative medicine and environmental health practice in Monroe Township examines alternatives to drugs and surgery and explores the root causes of various ailments common to women. At the same time, Cohen has become something of an expert on the effects of environmental chemical exposure. She has worked extensively with Dr. Andrew Weil, known as a pioneer in the field of integrative medicine. Cohen’s book, “The Smart Human’s Essential Guide to Living Healthy in a Chemical World,” is due for release this fall. In November, Cohen will introduce a pilot program at Princeton High School that integrates environmental health information into the health curriculum. Using some contributions of content from the nationally recognized non-profit Environmental Working Group, where she is the medical liaison, Cohen will talk to
students in Chemistry 1 and Human Health about the effects of the environment on well being. She hopes to extend this curriculum to area private schools and public schools nationally. “I thought about who this kind of information could really affect, and I believe one of the most critical age groups to reach out to is young people who may one day have children of their own,” she says. “Pre-teens and teens are also one of the largest consumers of cosmetics and personal care products. When I walk into Sephora and see pregnant women trying out and buying things that might harm them and their babies, I want to start crying.” Growing up in Yardley, Pa., Cohen knew from early childhood that she wanted to be a doctor. “My father, my brother my cousins – everyone in my family is a doctor,” she says. “It was just natural for me.” After PDS, she earned an undergraduate degree at the University of Pennsylvania and then graduated from the Hahnemann University School of Medicine (now Drexel University College of Medicine). Her internship and residency programs were at Beth Israel Medical Center in New York, and a rheumatology/autoimmune disease fellowship was at Montiefiore/Albert Einstein Hospital in the Bronx. Cohen’s husband, by the way, is a physical medicine and rehabilitation physician. Responding to a comment that her father must be proud of her, Cohen smiles. “He is. He’s a bit old school. And I’m not. But I haven’t abandoned my westernscience-based training,” she says. “What I have done is gotten a whole new set of tools to incorporate into what I already knew.” Cohen’s questioning of the conventional medical profession began in her first job. “I had this feeling that we should have been putting more of a focus onto things like diet, exercise, sleeping habits, and stress management,” she says. “A lot of it is
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