Jul 11, 2017 | Community, Featured
Seated: Barbara J. Niss and Arthur H. Aufses, Jr., MD. Back row, from left: Carolyn Aufses Blashek, Harriet Aufses, and Arthur H. Aufses III.
The Mount Sinai Health System’s archives, housed in a simple suite of offices on the Icahn School of Medicine at Mount Sinai campus, belies the rich trove of historical documents belonging to seven storied hospitals that are preserved inside.
Filed in these archives is an article about medicine as a noble calling that was written in 1848 by Woman’s Hospital physician E. Randolph Peaslee, MD. (The Woman’s Hospital was later merged into Mount Sinai St. Luke’s.) There are also minutes from the first board meetings for St. Luke’s Hospital from 1850, and for The Jews’ Hospital in 1852 (renamed The Mount Sinai Hospital in 1866), and the minutes from Mount Sinai Beth Israel’s founding board meeting in 1889 that were written in Yiddish.
These documents and many others from Roosevelt Hospital—renamed Mount Sinai West in 2015—and a limited collection from New York Eye and Ear Infirmary of Mount Sinai, Mount Sinai Queens, and Mount Sinai Brooklyn, provide unique glimpses into New York City’s history and how the practice of medicine has evolved over the centuries.
“History is many stories. We try to bring these stories to people at Mount Sinai so they will know and appreciate them,” says Barbara J. Niss, Director, The Arthur H. Aufses, Jr. MD Archives and Mount Sinai Records Management Program, part of the Academic Informatics and Technology Department. “The more you know about a place, the more connected you feel to it.”
The women’s ward at Mount Sinai St. Luke’s circa 1900.
Upon request, Ms. Niss provides one-hour historical walking tours of The Mount Sinai Hospital (MSH). The Archives’ staff also creates quarterly displays in the Annenberg North Lobby on historical topics using the Archives’ records. The Mount Sinai archivist since 1986, Ms. Niss co-wrote the definitive history of MSH and its clinical and surgical accomplishments in the book
This House of Noble Deeds: The Mount Sinai Hospital, 1852-2002, with Arthur H. Aufses, Jr., MD, retired Chairman of the Department of Surgery. She and Dr. Aufses also wrote a history of Mount Sinai’s School of Medicine in 2004.
Over the years, Dr. Aufses and his wife, Harriet, have been strong supporters of Mount Sinai. They established the Aufses Family Scholarship, lectureships in the Departments of Surgery and Population Health Science and Policy, and prizes for surgical residents and students. Dr. Aufses’s Mount Sinai roots date back to 1921, when his father began his surgical training at MSH. He says he first visited the archives in the mid-1980s to look for early surgical cases. “It was an incredible experience to see the vast collection of historical material dating back to the 1850s. I became fascinated with the archives.”
Preserving, organizing, and digitizing the Health System’s archival documents is an ongoing project for the Archives staff, and content is added to the collection daily. (Mount Sinai’s Records Management Program is also based in the Archives.) The staff regularly receives requests for information about a particular medical subject, hospital within the Health System, or individual. Ms. Niss says there is ongoing interest in refugee physicians who arrived in New York after fleeing Nazi Germany, in the history of the Woman’s Hospital, and from the families of women who graduated from three of the hospitals’ former schools of nursing.
The Aufses Archives also provided significant support in establishing the Mount Sinai History Wall, an artistic timeline unveiled in December 2016 that showcases in words and pictures each hospital’s transformative contributions to medicine, science, and patient care over the past two centuries. The History Wall is located on the fourth floor of the Corporate Services Center at 150 East 42nd Street, outside the seminar room where new employees attend orientation on their first day of work at Mount Sinai.
Updated on Jun 30, 2022 | Community, Featured
Graduating residents and fellows in Ophthalmology and Otolaryngology
Faculty, parents, and friends celebrated the accomplishments of 22 residents and fellows in Ophthalmology, Otolaryngology, and Plastic and Reconstructive Surgery at the 2017 Commencement of the New York Eye and Ear Infirmary of Mount Sinai.
James C. Tsai, MD, MBA, President, New York Eye and Ear Infirmary of Mount Sinai, and Chair of Ophthalmology, Mount Sinai Health System, welcomed graduates and guests to the event, held on Thursday, June 22, at the Friends Meeting House.
“It has been a pleasure and a privilege to teach and mentor this extraordinary class. Be proud of your achievements and celebrate your successes,” Dr. Tsai said, setting out goals for the future: “Use your knowledge to lead changes in health care for the better, and deliver exceptional patient care. Challenge the status quo to make a positive difference, seek opportunities to provide global assistance to revive hope. Innovate and dream big.”
Four of the graduates were residents specializing in otolaryngology, and seven were residents in ophthalmology. The residents will now take fellowships at top-tier institutions, including the University of California, San Francisco; Wills Eye Institute in Philadelphia; and Emory University Hospital in Atlanta.
Eleven fellows completed training in subspecialties, including cornea and refractive surgery, glaucoma, ocular immunology, vitreoretinal surgery, and aesthetic plastic surgery.
Updated on Jun 30, 2022 | Community, Featured
Members of the Class of 2017 of the Phillips School of Nursing at Mount Sinai Beth Israel
In a jubilant ceremony, the Phillips School of Nursing (PSON) at Mount Sinai Beth Israel graduated 80 new nurses who received an Associate’s Degree in Nursing, and conferred a Bachelor of Science in Nursing degree to 24 registered nurses. The 113th graduation ceremony was held on Tuesday, June 6, at Stern Auditorium on the campus of the Icahn School of Medicine at Mount Sinai.
Presiding at the ceremony were Janet A. Green and Ruth Nerken, Co-Chairs of the Board of PSON, who presented the degrees. Carleen Graham, MSN, RN, Program Coordinator, RN-BSN Program, served as the Platform Marshall, and Lorraine McGrath, MA, RN-BC, Assistant Dean for Academic Affairs, gave graduates their PSON pin.
Twenty graduates were inducted into the Honor Society, which was founded in 2012. These students successfully achieved a grade point average of 3.7 or higher.
Todd F. Ambrosia, DNP, MSN, RN, Dean, welcomed the graduates, faculty, staff, and guests. The commencement address was given by Betsy M. Tirado-Ortiz, RN. Now retired, Ms. Tirado—a 2016 recipient of the Nurse of the Year Award from the National Association of Hispanic
Nurses—maintains a passion for nursing and continues to participate in a number of international missions that help children with congenital heart defects.
“Don’t waste your time waiting to win the lotto. You have already won the lotto—you are a professional nurse,” Ms. Tirado told the graduates. “Make your own riches, share them, and enrich your own life and the lives of others. You each carry within you the power to go from magical thinking to the power of completion.”
Updated on Jun 30, 2022 | Community
Joanne Meyer, PharmD, MS, with John Manzo, PharmD, Chair, NYSCHP Research and Education Foundation.
Joanne Meyer, PharmD, MS, Chief Pharmacy Officer, Mount Sinai Health System, was recently honored by the New York State Council of Health-System Pharmacists (NYSCHP) Research and Education Foundation for exemplary leadership.
Dr. Meyer received the Bernard Mehl Leadership Award for her “high-caliber contributions” in leading health-system pharmacy practice and fostering interdisciplinary collaboration to advance safety practices. The late Dr. Mehl was the distinguished longtime Director of Pharmacy at The Mount Sinai Hospital and a renowned innovator, educator, and mentor.
“I sincerely trust that Dr. Mehl and his wife, Florence, would be proud and gratified that my leadership team and I have perpetuated his legacy of achieving quality pharmaceutical care at Mount Sinai,” Dr. Meyer said at an awards dinner held during the NYSCHP Annual Assembly.
Also recognized for research and clinical excellence were two Mount Sinai Beth Israel individuals. Victoria Huang, PharmD, Pharmacy Resident, received the Infectious Diseases Pharmacy Research Award; and Nikki Bhogal, PharmD, Clinical Pharmacy Manager, Transitions of Care, was honored with the Clinical Pharmacy Services Research Award and the Seymour & Elizabeth Katz Memorial Fund Award.
Updated on Jun 30, 2022 | Community
Third-year medical students at the Icahn School of Medicine at Mount Sinai recently participated in an educational competition—modeled after the popular television show Shark Tank—to develop and pitch novel interventions to a panel of judges for issues involving patient safety and quality improvement. The activity, created in 2016 by the Department of Medical Education, aims to teach leadership, team building, and collaboration skills to medical students.
Two winning teams were selected. Judges Marc Napp, MD, and Barbara Barnett, MD, joined 10 students from one winning team who had developed a novel strategy for transitioning patients from discharge to follow-up care. Dr. Napp is Senior Vice President, Medical Affairs, and Deputy Chief Medical Officer, Mount Sinai Health System. Dr. Barnett is Associate Professor of Emergency Medicine, and Medicine (General Internal Medicine), Icahn School of Medicine at Mount Sinai.
Updated on Jun 30, 2022 | Cardiology, Community
Annapoorna S. Kini, MD
In a ceremony held on Ellis Island in May, Annapoorna S. Kini, MD, Zena and Michael A. Wiener Professor of Medicine and Director of the Cardiac Catheterization Laboratory at The Mount Sinai Hospital, was among an esteemed group of recipients of the 2017 Ellis Island Medal of Honor. The award exalts the immigrant experience and recognizes individuals who impart their unique talents and wealth of knowledge to the American public.
Dr. Kini is a native of Mangaluru—also known as Mangalore— India, and has been a vital member of the Mount Sinai community for two decades. A renowned cardiologist, she performs more minimally invasive coronary procedures than any female interventionist in the United States, with a complication rate of less than .5 percent. “Through Dr. Kini’s joint-leadership, the Cardiac Catheterization Laboratory of Mount Sinai Heart offers patients unparalleled excellence and safety in interventional cardiology care. We congratulate her on this honor,” says Dennis S. Charney, MD, Anne and Joel Ehrenkranz Dean, Icahn School of Medicine at Mount Sinai, and President for Academic Affairs, Mount Sinai Health System.
