Andrey Zinchuk, MD, MHS, is a pulmonary, critical care and sleep physician.
In the hospital’s intensive care unit, he cares for people who are critically ill. In the clinic, he helps patients with sleep disorders, particularly those with complex sleep-disordered breathing. “My goal is to provide the kind of care that I would want for my own family,” Dr. Zinchuk says. “I believe in taking the time to hear the patient, and being a guide in their journey in health and illness.”
Before he decided to pursue medicine, Dr. Zinchuk worked as a chemical engineer, devising new ways to deliver medications to the right parts of the human body at the right time. “I loved the complexity of engineering and how physical systems interact, but I wanted to apply this passion for complex systems to directly improve people’s lives,” he says.
Both of Dr. Zinchuk’s parents were doctors, and he decided to follow in their footsteps. He began his training in neurology, but transitioned to internal medicine, ultimately specializing in pulmonary and sleep medicine. “I find sleep to be a perfect intersection between engineering, the science of breathing, neurology, and mental health.” He now directs the Advances Apnea Management Program (AAMP) at Yale, specializing in cutting-edge treatments for sleep apnea.
In addition to directly caring for patients, Dr. Zinchuk conducts research to help personalize therapy for sleep disorders. “We are finding that sleep apnea patients who have certain physiological characteristics (phenotypes) respond to some treatments but not others.” His most recent work describes how certain phenotypes may help predict whether a patient suffering from sleep apnea will succeed with continuous positive airway pressure (CPAP) or another sleep apnea therapy.
