Division of Endocrinology, Diabetes and Metabolism Faculty

The Faculty at Rutgers New Jersey Medical School provides a diverse range of expertise in Diabetes and Metabolism, Pituitary disorders, Bone and Calcium disease, Transgender medicine, Thyroid disease, Adrenal disease, and Neuroendocrine tumors.

David Bleich, MD

Professor of Medicine
Director, Division of Endorinology

Faculty Profile

Dr. Bleich is Chief, Division of Endocrinology, Diabetes, & Metabolism and Professor of Medicine at Rutgers New Jersey Medical School. Nationally recognized expert in both type 1 and type 2 diabetes and has played leadership roles in diabetes organizations including the American Diabetes Association the Juvenile Diabetes Research Foundation International, and the Department of Defense Diabetes Grant Review. Dr. Bleich has conducted grant-funded bench research in pancreatic beta-cell function and has spent >10,000 hours caring for individuals with diabetes, as well as mentoring and teaching medical students, residents and endocrine fellows.

Present interest and focus is improving the quality of diabetes care and developing a data-driven holistic approach to patient care. Strong education professional as Fellowship Director of Endocrinology, Diabetes, and Metabolism at Rutgers and fellowship training from Harvard Medical School.

Maya Raghuwanshi, MD

Associate Professor of Medicine

Faculty Profile

Dr. Maya Raghuwanshi MD, MPH completed her Internal Medicine training from St. Peter's Medical Center-Rutgers in New Brunswick and fellowship in Endocrinology, Diabetes and Metabolism from the University of Medicine and Dentistry of New Jersey (UMDNJ) - New Jersey Medical School (NJMS) in Newark in 1986. She received her MPH in "Urban and Environmental Health" from UMDNJ, Rutgers and NJIT combined degree program.

She joined the Faculty position at UMDNJ-NJMS, Department of Medicine, Division of Endocrinology in July 1986, and is currently serving as an Associate Professor of Medicine. She served as the acting Division Director in Endocrinology from 2003-2004 and Associate Director of Diabetes Clinic. She enjoys teaching medical students, residents, endocrine fellows and colleagues.

She has given numerous lectures on endocrine related topics at various hospitals in New Jersey. She is on the speakers list of the New Jersey Academy of Medicine. She was nominated for Golden Apple award twice for best teacher. She has been cited as a Top Doc by Castle Connely from 2014-2018. She has been awarded Exceptional Women in Medicine in 2018 by Castle Connely. She has been awarded America's Most Honored professionals in 2017 and 2018 by Americal Registry.

She has done research and published extensively in the field of obesity, diabetes, lipids and hypertension. She has contributed significantly in reducing the cardiovascular complications related to diabetes.

Dr. Raghuwanshi has served the community for past 20 years by teaching high school students in Mini-med programs and to the South Asian community about life style modification for diabetes prevention and obesity reduction. she has been involved in arranging symposiums on several endocrine related topics such as osteoporosis at Liberty science center, thyroid disorders, obesity and diabetes-related topics at many community centers, schools and churches. She ran workshops for teaching glucose monitoring for diabetic patients. Dr. Raghuwanshi received Dean's Service Award for Community Service.

Dr. Raghuwanshi has served as the President of the Student Government Association for School of Public Health. She was awarded into the Fellowship of American College of Physicians and Fellowship in American college of clinical endocrinology She has been cited in Swathmore Who's Who in 2004-2005 and she was honored life member for global directory of Who's Who. She served as the Vice President for the NJ AACE society for over 10 years and has recently being elected to be the President of the American Association of Clinical Endocrinology-New Jersey chapter.

Lissette M. Céspedes, MD

Assistant Professor of Medicine

Faculty Profile

Lissette M. Céspedes, M.D. received a Bachelor of Arts in Public Health from Brown University. She started her career in medicine and public health conducting health disparities research at Rutgers New Jersey Medical School (NJMS) in the Division of General Internal Medicine. She received her medical degree from Rutgers NJMS in 2011. She completed her residency in Internal Medicine at Rutgers Robert Wood Johnson Medical School (RWJMS) in 2014, where she received distinction in Humanism in Medicine. She remained at Rutgers RWJMS to complete her fellowship in Endocrinology, Diabetes and Metabolism in 2016.

She returned to her alma mater, NJMS, to begin her academic career. In addition to clinical practice, she serves as co-director of "Patient Centered Medicine I", a first-year medical school course which introduces students to history taking, performing the physical exam, medical ethics and humanism. She is a scholar and Academic Medicine fellow with the NJMS Hispanic Center of Excellence.

She is presently an MPH candidate at the Rutgers School of Public Health concentrating in Urban Public Health.  Her clinical and research interests include disparities in diabetes care for Latinos, diabetes education and obesity medicine.  She is a first-generation Cuban-American who is fluent in Spanish and provides language concordant medical care to the growing Hispanic community.