“I was excited to come to Mount Sinai and continue working in a truly collegial, multidisciplinary atmosphere,” says Paula Morzenti, MD, who was an Army internist and is now a second-year critical care medicine fellow. “You’re working side by side with surgeons, anesthesia, social work, pharmacy, physical therapy—all of the disciplines involved in delivering great patient care.”
As an Army internist at Landstuhl Regional Medical Center in Germany—the largest U.S. military hospital overseas—Paula Morzenti, MD, routinely practiced high-stakes medicine. During the U.S. withdrawal from Afghanistan, roughly 10,000 evacuees and service members arrived at American bases over three days. Dr. Morzenti treated Afghan patients with urgent medical needs and U.S. soldiers with acute injuries.
When she later sought advanced civilian training in critical care, Dr. Morzenti chose Mount Sinai for the multidisciplinary teamwork she valued in military medicine and the chance to care for more complex patients with highly specialized treatments.
“I was excited to come to Mount Sinai and continue working in a truly collegial, multidisciplinary atmosphere,” says Dr. Morzenti, now a second-year critical care medicine fellow. “You’re working side by side with surgeons, anesthesia, social work, pharmacy, physical therapy—all of the disciplines involved in delivering great patient care.”
Dr. Morzenti’s path reflects a broader dynamic across Mount Sinai’s Graduate Medical Education programs. While physicians with military backgrounds arrive seeking specialized clinical training, they bring front-line leadership and crisis-tested judgment that enrich patient care and strengthen teams across the Mount Sinai Health System.
“We have learned many important lessons from the military about how to reduce patient care errors and improve safety in our hospitals,” says Michael Leitman, MD, Dean for Graduate Medical Education at the Icahn School of Medicine at Mount Sinai. “Interprofessional teamwork is an important concept that people in the military understand: the sum is much greater than the individual parts.”
Inside the Bronx VA
Mount Sinai’s ties to military medicine are most visible at the James J. Peters VA Medical Center in the Bronx, a primary teaching affiliate of the Icahn School of Medicine. The two institutions have worked closely for more than 50 years in medical education and patient care.
Mount Sinai physicians train there in medicine, psychiatry, neurology, cardiology, rehabilitation medicine, surgery, palliative care, and other specialties. On inpatient units, in intensive care, and in specialty services, they care for veterans with complex, service-connected medical needs. Trainees also take part in research alongside Mount Sinai faculty whose VA work spans brain and behavioral disorders, addiction, spinal cord injury, and traumatic brain injury.
Psychiatry is one of the hospital’s largest departments, with 18 full-time staff psychiatrists supervising rotations across acute inpatient units, specialized outpatient clinics, and integrated primary care. Trainees manage care for addiction, serious mental illness, geriatric psychiatry, and post-traumatic stress disorder, collaborating closely with interdisciplinary teams of psychologists, social workers, and nurses.
Christine A. LaGrotta, MD, Associate Training Director of the Mount Sinai Morningside-Mount Sinai West VA Scholarly Track, with Program Director Paul Rosenfield, MD, left, and Mark Weingarten, MD, Chief Resident
Christine A. LaGrotta, MD, helps guide resident education as Associate Training Director of the Mount Sinai Morningside-Mount Sinai West VA Scholarly Track and an addiction psychiatrist in the hospital’s Supported Recovery Services Clinic. She understands the setting from a trainee’s perspective, having spent eight months of her 2018–2019 addiction psychiatry fellowship at the Bronx VA before joining the permanent faculty. Grandfathers who served in the Marines and Air Force gave her an early connection to military families, while the freedom to practice without common civilian administrative hurdles convinced her to build her career there.
“We can give patients the medications and treatment they need without outside barriers, especially from insurance companies, getting in the way,” Dr. LaGrotta says. Trainees also benefit from a model where essential resources, including an outpatient methadone clinic and an inpatient unit that manages medical detoxification, are embedded directly into daily care.
A Dedicated VA Track
The VA Scholarly Track, launched in July 2025 within the Psychiatry Residency at Mount Sinai Morningside and Mount Sinai West, has its own “match number” and accepts four residents each year for concentrated clinical and research experience in veterans’ mental health. Trainees begin VA outpatient clinics in their second year and spend their entire third year at the Bronx VA, with additional research time and mentorship.
Coursework covers cognitive processing therapy and prolonged exposure, two evidence-based therapies for PTSD. Residents can also participate in clinical research on MDMA-assisted psychotherapy and help manage a supervised transcranial magnetic stimulation (TMS) clinic.
Skills in trauma-focused care carry directly into civilian and community practice, Dr. LaGrotta notes, where clinicians routinely treat patients whose physical and mental health have been shaped by trauma.
Aditya Raghunandan, MD, Associate Professor of Rehabilitation Medicine and Residency Associate Program Director at the Long School of Medicine at UT Health San Antonio. A former Navy flight surgeon, he spent eight years on active duty before entering Mount Sinai’s Physical Medicine and Rehabilitation residency in 2016.
A Shared Military Bond
Mount Sinai trainees at the VA account for more than 50 residency and fellowship positions across specialties. Most aren’t veterans. Shared service, however, gives those with military backgrounds an immediate connection with patients who know the culture, language, and experiences of military life.
Aditya Raghunandan, MD, a former Navy flight surgeon, spent eight years on active duty before entering Mount Sinai’s Physical Medicine and Rehabilitation residency in 2016. About a third of his training took place at the Bronx VA, and he served as chief resident in his fourth year.
“Going from active duty to taking care of vets again made the transition back into training less jarring,” Dr. Raghunandan says.
Shared military experience gave him an immediate shorthand with veteran patients, bridging conversations that often take civilian doctors weeks to establish.
“There’s an inherent camaraderie that comes with being in the military,” Dr. Raghunandan says. “The military lingo and abbreviations allow you to jump straight into the conversation. You can skip the background explanations, which helps veterans open up faster and leads directly to more effective care.”
During his rotations, Dr. Raghunandan treated a veteran close to his own age who had deployed to Afghanistan during the same Operation Enduring Freedom campaign. Stationed at Camp Pendleton near Dr. Raghunandan’s own post during the same deployment cycle, the soldier was in an armored vehicle flipped by an IED blast, which left him with burns, a traumatic brain injury, and a below-the-knee amputation.
“Caring for him was rewarding and sobering at the same time,” Dr. Raghunandan says. “Rewarding because I was picking up skills in residency that could help someone who deployed in the same conflict I had. But we had been in the same area, known similar people, and he was injured while I was fortunate enough to walk away unharmed.”
Dr. Raghunandan now brings lessons from both military medicine and Mount Sinai to his own trainees. As an Associate Professor of Rehabilitation Medicine and Residency Associate Program Director at the Long School of Medicine at UT Health San Antonio, he pairs military accountability with deep compassion for the veteran experience, setting clear expectations while teaching residents that clinical discipline and empathy go hand in hand.
Like Dr. Raghunandan, Dr. Morzenti sees her Mount Sinai fellowship as a launchpad for academic leadership and service. She will complete her critical care training in June 2027, with upcoming global health electives that include a month in a Kenyan intensive care unit in January, following a similar placement in Nepal last year.
She envisions a career combining academic critical care, teaching, and international medicine. “I’d like to bring what I’ve learned into international settings through education and teaching,” Dr. Morzenti says. “Eventually, working at an academic center like Mount Sinai would be the ideal path for me.”
Most Mount Sinai residents arrive at the Bronx VA without military experience. Beginning in their second year, veteran staff members lead didactics on military vernacular, acronyms, and the realities of deployment. Yet Dr. LaGrotta emphasizes that connecting with patients extends far beyond classroom instruction.
“The most important thing is curiosity,” Dr. LaGrotta says. “We give residents a background in military knowledge, but they’re not going to know everything. They need to come in curious and open to being taught by the veterans themselves.”