Angela Diaz, MD, PhD, MPH, Director of the Mount Sinai Adolescent Health Center

Treat every obstacle as an opportunity to learn. Lean on each other. If you have a chance to make someone’s life better, do it.

These sound like lofty goals, but they are put into action every day by Angela Diaz, MD, PhD, MPH, Director of the Mount Sinai Adolescent Health Center, who was featured on Tuesday, June 11, in a “Conversation With Leaders” event at the Corporate Services Center. Dr. Diaz, an international leader in adolescent medicine, talked about her professional journey at the event organized by Women in Information Technology at Mount Sinai. The discussion was moderated by Mary Lowenwirth, Director of Reporting and Logistics, Information Technology.

Dr. Diaz is the Jean C. and James W. Crystal Professor in Adolescent Health, Department of Pediatrics and Department of Environmental Medicine and Public Health at the Icahn School of Medicine, and a member of the governing Council of the National Academy of Medicine. And she leads one of the nation’s largest adolescent health centers, known for outstanding research and training, and for serving more than 12,000 vulnerable youths each year with confidential health care at no cost to them. She is also a profoundly grateful former patient of the Mount Sinai Adolescent Health Center.

Her journey to being a doctor began long ago, when she was a small child in the Dominican Republic. She fell and severely cut herself and was taken to the hospital. “The doctors and nurses there seemed like wonderful people,” she said. “And from then on, to everyone who asked me, I said, ‘I want to be a doctor.’” The road was not an easy one. Her mother was a hard-working factory worker without a formal education.  And when Angela Diaz came to the United States permanently around age 15, she was placed in a crowded classroom of non-English speakers. Her teacher noticed that she was very good at math and science and nurtured her abilities. But she became depressed around age 17 and dropped out of school. That is when the Mount Sinai Adolescent Health Center helped change her life. A social worker there noticed that she was despondent, and encouraged her to go back to school. “I always say they glued me back together,” Dr. Diaz said.

Dr. Diaz graduated from high school, then attended City College of New York while working at the factory with her mother. Still dreaming of becoming a doctor, she marched into Columbia University one day—mainly because it was in her neighborhood—and amazed an admissions worker by filling out her application to medical school on the spot. She was accepted at Columbia, where she earned her medical degree and later a PhD in epidemiology. She also earned a Master of Public Health from Harvard University, and served her internship and residency in pediatrics at The Mount Sinai Hospital. Dr. Diaz told the attendees that in working toward such goals, it is important to be prepared and to be positive. “I’m very optimistic by nature,” she said.  “I not only see the glass half full, I see it spilling over. Everything is possible.”

In 1981, Dr. Diaz’s path took her back to Mount Sinai to do a pediatric residency and adolescent medicine fellowship, and she subsequently became director of the Mount Sinai Adolescent Health Center. Services there include medical, sexual and reproductive health, dental, optical, and mental-health care; health education; substance abuse prevention and treatment; help with eating disorders; HIV/AIDS prevention and treatment; violence prevention and treatment; and services for LGBT teens and those who have been abused.

Dr. Diaz said she feels “really blessed” to work at the Center. “We work with some young people who are dealing with incest and sex trafficking. We help them build strategies to heal, and to stay in school,” she said. “To see these young people evolve is very rewarding. They give us so much back, I can’t tell you how meaningful that is.”

From left: Karen Rivera, Sherrine Gonzalez, and Katari Lebron.

A donation drive led by the Heritage of Latino Alliance (HOLA) employee resource group at Mount Sinai’s Corporate Services Center helped make prom dreams come true for about 50 girls from Esperanza Preparatory Academy in East Harlem.

The group collected more than 150 dresses and a large selection of accessories from staff throughout the Mount Sinai Health System and delivered them to the school in April.

The event was coordinated by three HOLA members who are supervisors in Mount Sinai’s Central Billing Office, Karen Rivera, Sherrine Gonzalez, and Katari Lebron.

The parent coordinator of the school, Nahelis Polanco, said in a thank-you note that the donations brought smiles to the girls’ faces, adding, “You truly did a wonderful thing.”