David C. Thomas, MD, MHPE
System Vice Chair for Education, Department of Medicine
Associate Dean for Continuing Medical Education
Professor, Department of Medicine
Professor, Department of Medical Education
Professor, Department of Rehabilitation and Human Performance
Icahn School of Medicine at Mount Sinai
“I specifically chose Mount Sinai because of its incredible clinical reputation. What has always impressed me about Mount Sinai is that, from the beginning, the community has been written into its charter,” says David C. Thomas, MD, MHPE, one of nine accomplished physicians and researchers who received the 2019 Jacobi Medallion—one of Mount Sinai’s highest awards.
“I think that my approach to wanting to care for vulnerable populations really comes from the values that my family put in me. I had the opportunity to do some volunteer work in Haiti, and so saw incredible inequities in health care. I just realized it was something I wanted to dedicate myself to,” says Dr. Thomas, who for more than 20 years has devoted his career to serving the underserved in the local communities.
“I could not imagine being somewhere else than Mount Sinai. It has become a fabric for me,” says Dr. Thomas, who in 2005 co-founded the East Harlem Health Outreach Partnership (EHHOP), a student-run, attending-supervised, clinic in the Harlem community. “I love coming here to work. I live in Harlem. It is a place that has pushed me to develop in a way that I’d never saw and could never imagine.”
“David brought the principles of comprehensive care to the most vulnerable,” says Reena Karani, MD, MHPE, Senior Associate Dean for Undergraduate Medical Education and Curricular Affairs and Director of the Institute for Medical Education at the Icahn School of Medicine.
“The East Harlem Health Outreach Partnership is really a jewel. What drives David is this incredible commitment to making sure that our trainees are equally committed in their careers, to caring for the vulnerable in an evidence-based thoughtful manner,” says Dr. Karani. “He’s an innovative thinker in medical education, and a very, very devoted mentor and advisor to so many. He understands, at the very core, that training the next generation is really our future.”
