Updated on Jul 8, 2022 | Alumni, Community, School
Annette Stauber Cohn, RN, will be 100 years old on Saturday, July 9, 2022. Ms. Cohn enrolled in the former Beth Israel Hospital School of Nursing (now Phillips School of Nursing at Mount Sinai Beth Israel) in 1940. At that time, it was a three-year diploma program.
Back then, the nursing students resided on two floors of the hospital. As at other nursing schools of the time, students conformed to strict standards of behavior, dress, and health habits. A housemother made rounds every night at 10 pm. A dress inspection was conducted weekly, and the students were weighed to make sure they did not “get too heavy” since it was perceived as a professional necessity that nurses possess the required stamina and “look well.” The uniforms were green. Because World War II was on, there were no silk stockings, rayon was too expensive, and nylon was being used for parachutes, which left black cotton hose. By the end of the day their feet would be purple.
All the instruction was provided by the physicians and nurses at the hospital. Students worked 12-hour shifts six days a week on the hospital wards, and attended classes in between their other duties. In return, they were given housing, uniforms, and books and were paid a small monthly allowance.
Although times were different and certainly much stricter, Ms. Cohn fondly recalls her time in New York City, first as a student and later as a registered nurse. On weekends, she would visit museums, galleries, and flower markets, and attend free concerts. An avid lover of the arts, she once took a group of nursing students to the opera, where they bought standing-room tickets.
She began her nursing career at Beth Israel Hospital when she was asked to work directly for the hospital and nursing school director, Dorothea Daniels. This was quite a testament to Ms. Cohn’s skills, since Ms. Daniels had a reputation as “a woman to be reckoned with.” Her first assignment was to review nursing applications and later she taught at the nursing school.
It was at Beth Israel Hospital that Ms. Cohn met the love of her life, Perry David Cohn, MD, who completed his residency and internship in pediatrics at the hospital. They were engaged when World War II broke out; Dr. Cohn was drafted and served his country as a physician. He finished his tour with an honorable discharge, but then received orders to return and was stationed in Georgia. These events kept delaying their marriage and so they decided to have a small wedding in New York City and then move to Georgia together. Eventually they made their way back up North to New Jersey where they later built a house in Passaic.
Like most physicians back then, her husband operated his practice out of their home. During those early years, Ms. Cohn was for the most part a homemaker with three children, but she also worked as a nurse alongside her husband when it was very busy. When the children were older, she returned to nursing practice full-time. Over the years her family grew to include three children, six grandchildren, and two great-grandchildren.
Upon retirement, she and her husband enjoyed traveling and New York theatre, opera, and ballets. Ms. Cohn always had an eye for art and she enjoyed taking lessons in sculpture and art (paintings and pastels), along with gardening, knitting, and needlepoint, and, of course, spending time with her family and friends.
Fond memories of her time in nursing school and living in New York City led Ms. Cohn to write a memoir (“Out of Time and Place”) about those early days. Recognizing how important the school was to Ms. Cohn, for her 85th birthday her children established a graduation award in her name. Ms. Cohn was delighted to attend the pinning and graduation ceremonies annually and have the opportunity to share some of her experiences with the students and personally congratulate the recipients of her honorary award.
When asked what the secret to such a long life is, she did not hesitate to say, “Having a wonderful husband, fantastic children, grandchildren, and great-grandchildren, and the support of my friends and exceptional health care providers.”
Updated on Jul 8, 2022 | Community, Featured, School
The Phillips School of Nursing at Mount Sinai Beth Israel has been approved to charter a chapter of Sigma Theta Tau International Honor Society of Nursing.
Sigma is the global leader in recognizing excellence in education, practice, and research in nursing. This milestone designation will allow the school to charter its own chapter and induct members into the Society from the school as well as nursing leaders in the Mount Sinai Health System.
Laly Joseph, DVM, DNP, CNE, RN, C, MSN, APRN, ANP, FNAP
“We are excited and honored to have received this invitation from Sigma,” said Laly Joseph, DVM, DNP, CNE, RNC, MSN, APRN, ANP, FNAP, Senior Associate Dean at the Phillips School of Nursing and President of the school’s Sigma Chapter. “Sigma members are leaders at all levels of the health care industry, which includes top-notch nursing executives, clinicians, educators, researchers, policymakers, entrepreneurs, and others. Our students and nurse leaders from the Health System will join a distinguished group of nurses who have met or exceeded the rigorous standards required to receive an invitation to join Sigma.”
A chartering and induction ceremony is planned for the fall of 2022 and will include nursing students and nurse leaders from the Mount Sinai Health System.
“Being selected to host a Sigma chapter is a testament to our school’s commitment in nursing education and scholarship. I want to thank Dr. Laly Joseph and the faculty for their hard work in preparing us to gain this honor,” said Dean Todd Ambrosia, DNP, MSN, APRN, FNP-BC, FNAP.
Sigma Theta Tau International Honor Society of Nursing is a nonprofit organization whose mission is to support the learning, knowledge, and professional development of nurses as part of a commitment to making a difference in health worldwide. The society was founded in 1922 by six nurses at the Indiana University Training School for Nurses, now the Indiana University School of Nursing.
Dean Todd Ambrosia, DNP, MSN, APRN, FNP-BC, FNAP
Sigma’s mission is to create a global community of nurses who lead in using knowledge, scholarship, service and learning to improve public health around the world, which aligns with the mission of the Phillips School of Nursing at Mount Sinai Beth Israel.
Membership is by invitation based on scholarly achievement. Baccalaureate and graduate nursing students who demonstrate excellence in scholarship, along with nurse leaders exhibiting exceptional achievements in nursing, are invited to join.
Sigma has more than 130,000 active members in more than 100 countries, and there are 540 chapters at 700 institutions of higher education worldwide. Members have numerous professional development opportunities in the areas of education, leadership, career development, evidence-based nursing, research, and scholarship.
Updated on Nov 14, 2025 | Community, Engagement, Featured
The 52nd NYC Pride March kicked off in full force on Sunday, June 26, returning in person after a two-year hiatus. Mount Sinai displayed its pride down Fifth Avenue and the full spectrum of the Mount Sinai family—providers, researchers, support staff, students, and more—showed up to impress the importance of LGBTQ+ visibility and inclusivity in science, technology, engineering, mathematics, and medicine fields.
Mount Sinai Health System is committed to meeting the needs of LGBTQ+ patients, be it through the Mount Sinai Doctors or hospital networks, the Institute for Advanced Medicine, or the Center for Transgender Medicine and Surgery. In addition, the Health System’s dedication to LGBTQ+ representation in employment and training helped it earn a top score of 100 and the designation of “LGBTQ+ Healthcare Equality Leader” in the Human Rights Campaign Foundation’s Healthcare Equality Index earlier this year.
Check out the Mount Sinai contingent at this year’s Pride March:
Read more about LGBTQ+ health and how Mount Sinai champions this cause:
Jun 28, 2022 | Community, Featured
Brian Radbill, MD, FACP, Chief Medical Officer, Mount Sinai Morningside, talks with Kim Keller and other staff about ways to develop a culture of safety.
Establishing a culture in which employees feel comfortable reporting safety events is one of the keys to achieving “zero harm” in health care because it allows hospitals to identify vulnerabilities in their care delivery systems.
Recently, a safety event in Tennessee that resulted in a nurse being convicted of criminally negligent homicide gained national attention for its criminalization of medical error. The verdict is expected to have a chilling effect on safety event reporting in hospitals across the nation that will ultimately make our health systems less safe.
Now is a crucial time for health care leaders to support front-line staff by promoting and properly implementing a system called Just Culture.
Brian Radbill, MD
Just Culture is a fair and just system of accountability that supports an organization’s values and reflects what we know about system design—systems are not perfect, and people make mistakes—when determining how we respond to a safety event. On the journey to “high reliability,” it is crucial that health care organizations develop a culture of safety and learning that respects and supports front-line staff.
Just Culture refers to a system used in a number of industries that is based on the principle that mistakes are generally the product of faulty organizational cultures, rather than the fault of one or more employees. The goal is to create an organization in which people report errors to help the organization learn from mistakes.
Historically, and even today, there is a perception that health care organizations remain overly punitive when responding to a safety event. Mount Sinai heard this from their own staff in the system-wide staff survey, Your Voice Counts.
Just Culture is not about creating a blame-free environment. It is about finding a fair balance where accountability is shared between the individual and the organization. The organization is responsible for designing and implementing safe systems and responding to safety events in a just manner. Individuals are accountable for the quality of their choices and for reporting errors or otherwise identifying system vulnerabilities.
Despite widespread recognition of the value of Just Culture, managers and leaders within health care often lack the necessary training to effectively and consistently respond to safety events in a manner consistent with Just Culture. In addition, most front-line staff have not been formally trained about Just Culture and are unaware of what it means to them.
To address these knowledge gaps and respond to concerns raised in the Your Voice Counts survey, leadership across the Mount Sinai Health System began working with David Marx, a pioneer in safety across several industries who is widely recognized as the “Father of Just Culture.” As part of that collaboration, Mount Sinai received training and educational materials to allow us to develop our own Just Culture “train-the-trainer” program. Originally intended as an in-person program, a virtual Just Culture training program was developed in response to the COVID-19 pandemic that allows participants to actively learn and engage with facilitators.
Recently, we began the first of several planned Just Culture Training for Managers programs within the Mount Sinai Health System. In order to make the program entertaining and leverage its online platform, the concept of the program is that participants are members of an at-home viewing audience watching a fictional morning talk show complete with hosts, guests, and even “commercial breaks.” Designated facilitators guide participants through a series of learning exercises in small breakout groups, culminating in their use of the Just Culture Company’s Just Culture Algorithm™ to work through two practice safety event cases.
In addition, after they have completed the half-day training, participants are instructed on how to educate staff about Just Culture within their unit or department. To strengthen the adoption of Just Culture, participants are invited to participate in monthly Zoom “lunch-and-learns” during which experts within the Health System discuss how to apply Just Culture in numerous industries.
Now more than ever, health systems need to work with front-line providers to create a culture of safety through a system of shared accountability. Just Culture training provides department heads, managers, nurse mangers, and other leaders with the tools to properly respond to a safety event to make our system of health care delivery safer. Through this training and associated education plan, the Mount Sinai Health System is committed to sustaining a workplace that ensures staff are treated fairly and patient safety remains at the center of everything we do.
For more information on Just Culture training at Mount Sinai, contact Shabona Akter, shabona.akter@mountsinai.org.
Brian Radbill, MD, Chief Medical Officer at Mount Sinai Morningside, is also a nephrologist who specializes in the treatment of chronic kidney disease. He earned his MD degree at Hahnemann University School of Medicine and trained as a resident and a fellow at the Icahn School of Medicine at Mount Sinai.
Updated on Nov 14, 2025 | Community, Engagement
Seated: Wayne Powell, training supervisor, and Margie Rodriguez, parking and transportation manager. Standing: Telvet Zimmerman, operations manager; Herschel Nurse, security coordinator; and Zorina Costello, director of community engagement.
The Center for Stress, Resilience, and Personal Growth recently hosted a luncheon for the Mount Sinai Hospital security staff, honoring them for their vital role in keeping staff, visitors, and patients within The Mount Sinai Health System safe. More than 50 staff members and supervisors attended the event on Friday, April 29, at the Leon and Norma Hess Center for Science and Medicine on The Mount Sinai Hospital campus.
“This work became even more important and challenging throughout the COVID-19 pandemic; and every day, they do the hard and emotionally challenging work of managing very tense and upsetting situations,” says the Rev. Zorina Costello, DMin, MS, Director of Community Engagement for the Center for Stress, Resilience, and Personal Growth and the Center for Spirituality and Health.
The luncheon is part of a broader effort by the Center to support the emotional well-being and resilience of security staff, says Deborah B. Marin, MD, Director of the Center for Stress, Resilience, and Personal Growth.
Updated on Nov 14, 2025 | Community, Engagement, Featured
Richard “Woody” Wood enjoys wakeboarding, traveling, and other activities.
Among the top myths about people with spinal cord injuries are that they are to be pitied, that they always need help, and that they can’t lead independent and fulfilling lives. All of these were gently dispelled in a virtual talk led by Angela Riccobono, PhD, Director of Rehabilitation Neuropsychology; Richard “Woody” Wood, Outreach Program Coordinator in the Mount Sinai Spinal Cord Injury Rehabilitation program; and Yesenia Torres, Accessibility Outreach Coordinator of the New York City Taxi and Limousine Commission.
The talk was titled “Debunking Common Myths about Spinal Cord Injuries” and may be viewed here. It was part of the second annual Raising Disability Awareness Virtual Talk Series, launched by ODI for Disability Awareness Month to raise awareness and promote an inclusive and equitable workplace and health care environment for people with disabilities.
Yesenia Torres
Ms. Torres, who conducts training in disability awareness and etiquette, had two important tips: If you wonder if a person with disabilities needs help “Just ask first,” she said. “Do you need some help, and how can I help you? Those are the major questions.” And when referring to some with a disability, mention the person first, then the disability if it is relevant.
“We are us. We’re out there. We’re individuals. We do everything, maybe with a different form of doing it,” Ms. Torres said. “But our disability does not define us.”
Dr. Riccobono said it was important to be both informed and socially aware of the issues that people with disabilities face. For example, those with spinal cord injuries often need more room to maneuver. With so many buildings having tiny bathrooms, narrow doorways, and stairs instead of elevators, life can be much more difficult for people with disabilities. In a health care facility, exam tables, mammogram machines, and even clothing racks may not be reachable for those with spinal cord injuries.
Ms. Torres and Mr. Wood recounted some of their own life experiences to dispel some common myths and point out the tremendous diversity within the community of people with disabilities.
Richard “Woody” Wood
One myth that people with spinal cord injuries face is that they are sad, depressed, or ill. “I’ve actually known someone who told me that they were sitting on the street and somebody just came and put money in their lap,” Dr. Riccobono said. Mr. Wood added that while he was waiting for a ride, a woman randomly gave him a dollar, even though he was talking on a brand new iPhone.
There is the mistaken belief that people who use wheelchairs cannot have fulfilling sex lives. “That’s the furthest from the truth,” Mr. Wood said. Ms. Torres added that her sex life is even better now. “Intimacy with your partner becomes very important and very powerful,” she said.
Angela Riccobono, PhD
The myth that people in wheelchairs can’t travel is also pervasive. “I travel a lot. And I’m actually organizing a trip to San Diego with my siblings, because I need a break. I’ve been doing too much,” Ms. Torres said, and described services that help with air travel. “Everything is out there for us. We go to the counter, and we say that we’re in a wheelchair. If we want, we can take our own wheelchair, or they could put us on a service wheelchair that’s very narrow and fits in the aisle of the plane. So, whoever wants to go out and travel, there are no ‘buts,’ because there’s help out there.”
Dr. Riccobono shared some recommendations, such as taking action by changing one’s beliefs and assumptions about people with spinal cord injuries, changing one’s behavior to include hiring people with disabilities to enhance inclusion in the workplace, and advocating for those who need it the most. “Listening to the needs of the community and working together to create positive change is an excellent way for experiences to get better,” she said.
