Academy fellows are inducted in recognition of their extraordinary contributions to improve health locally and globally. With nearly 3,000 fellows, AAN comprises nursing’s most accomplished leaders in policy, research, administration, practice, and academia.
Dr. Souffront has made many novel and influential contributions to health equity, nursing research, and health care delivery locally and globally. Her research has centered around the treatment of Black emergency department patients with hypertension, and the application of innovative interventions that include blood biomarkers, bioinformatics, and telehealth.
Dr. Souffront, who is also Assistant Professor, Emergency Medicine, at the Icahn School of Medicine at Mount Sinai, was the first in her field to document the attitudinal and organizational barriers to hypertension recognition among multidisciplinary emergency clinicians across the United States. This study influenced the development, implementation, and evaluation of an informatics intervention to improve nurse- and physician-recognition of uncontrolled hypertension and clinical outcomes. She recently documented that Stage B heart failure is ubiquitous in Black emergency department patients with asymptomatic hypertension—research expected to influence practice and policy throughout the United States.
Dr. Souffront is passionate about advancing the role that nurses play in translational research and improving health outcomes. To assure research initiatives align with the needs of clinical nurses, Dr. Souffront designed, led, and implemented a large, multi-center study that found clinical nurses are willing to participate in research and evidence-based practice initiatives, if given the time, opportunity, and support to learn the needed skills. This work has been disseminated nationally and internationally and has informed several significant educational initiatives.
Dr. Souffront is also an Adjunct Assistant Professor at the Mount Sinai Phillips School of Nursing and a founder and current Editor-in-Chief of the journal Practical Implementation of Nursing Science.
“Congratulations to Dr. Souffront for this well-deserved and prestigious honor,” said Beth Oliver, DNP, RN, FAAN, Chief Nurse Executive and Senior Vice President, Cardiac Services at the Mount Sinai Health System.
The Mount Sinai Health System has expanded its presence in Upper Manhattan with the opening of the new Mount Sinai-Harlem Health Center, a state-of-the-art outpatient medical facility that brings the highest quality health care to the community. The 12-story, 85,000-square-foot medical building, completed at a cost of $80 million, will be home to primary care and specialty practices for adults and children, and will also offer dentistry, mental health services, imaging, and a specialty pharmacy.
A multispecialty practice, scheduled to open on the first floor in 2024, will be staffed by board certified physicians offering primary care and a wide range of specialties, including Cardiology (heart), Gastroenterology (digestive diseases), Nephrology (kidneys), Ophthalmology (eye care), Orthopedics (bones), and Podiatry (feet), initially. Mental health services for adults and children will also be available when the behavioral health clinics, currently located at Mount Sinai Morningside, move to the new building.
The new Health Center will also be home to Mount Sinai’s Institute for Advanced Medicine (IAM), a service dedicated to providing comprehensive, compassionate care to underserved communities and patients with specialized needs.
The first office to open in the new space is IAM’s Jack Martin and Morningside Clinics, which are moving from The Mount Sinai Hospital and Mount Sinai Morningside. The new location will centralize the two practices as the new Jack Martin Fund Center. The Center provides primary and specialized care to patients who are HIV positive and those at high risk for developing HIV or other sexually transmitted infections. In addition to maintaining the same services and care team, the new, state-of-the-art center will provide patients with direct access to one health care destination that offers services including acupuncture; dentistry; dermatology; gynecology; HIV care; massage therapy; mental health; nephrology; neurology (nervous system, including brain); nutrition; pain management; pediatrics; and care for lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender, queer, asexual, and intersex people.
A radiology suite offering X-ray and ultrasound imaging, as well as bone density testing, will open in 2024. A new specialty pharmacy, also slated to open in 2024, will be available to patients as well as members of the surrounding community.
Mount Sinai-Harlem Health will also be home to the Diversity Innovation Hub, a partnership through Mount Sinai’s Office of Diversity and Inclusion and the Icahn School of Medicine at Mount Sinai. Founded in 2019, the unique community-driven incubator strives to eliminate disparities in health care and to provide economic opportunity to the community through technological innovation and entrepreneurship.
“Our goal for Mount Sinai-Harlem Health is to bring increased access for much-needed specialty care to the community,” says Berthe Erisnor, MBA, Vice President, Ambulatory Services, Mount Sinai Morningside. “This beautiful, state-of-the-art facility gives us the ability to offer comprehensive services and advanced medical technology closer to the patients we serve. Expanding the community’s access to both primary and specialty care is something that we take very seriously.”
Mount Sinai’s Commitment to Upper Manhattan
Mount Sinai’s $80-million investment in the Mount Sinai-Harlem Health Center is part of its broad commitment to providing inclusive, equitable, high-quality medical care and cutting-edge technology to all the communities it serves, including the residents of Upper Manhattan.
In 2022, Mount Sinai relocated its nursing school to East Harlem. The Phillips School of Nursing (PSON), located at 148 East 126th Street, provides a diverse student body with a progressive curriculum combining effective classroom teaching with clinical practice. PSON is dedicated to engaging its Upper Manhattan neighbors through community-based programs facilitated by its students and has established a partnership with the DREAM Charter School in East Harlem to expose students in grades K-12 to careers in health care.
In 2019, Mount Sinai opened the New York Proton Center (NYPC), the region’s foremost destination for proton and radiation therapy to treat cancer. Located at 225 East 126 Street, NYPC was created in partnership with Memorial Sloan Kettering Cancer Center and Montefiore Medical Center.
Mount Sinai Doctors-West 147th Street, a long-established and highly regarded primary care practice, is located at 2771 Frederick Douglass Boulevard at 147th Street in the heart of Harlem. Board-certified medical doctors representing the diversity of the community provide a wide range of health care services and access to all the resources of Mount Sinai Morningside.
“Mount Sinai has a long and proud history of serving the Upper Manhattan community, and our new Mount Sinai-Harlem Health Center is the latest in our ongoing commitment to deliver world-class care, resources, and services to where the community lives and works,” said Kelly Cassano, DO, Chief Executive Officer, Mount Sinai Doctors Faculty Practice; Dean for Clinical Affairs, Icahn Mount Sinai; and Senior Vice President for Ambulatory Operations, Mount Sinai Health System.
Mount Sinai-Harlem Health Center is located at 158 West 124th Street, between Adam Clayton Powell and Malcolm X boulevards.
Residents took a community health tour to meet local community leaders and visit the East Harlem Neighborhood Action Center, the East Harlem Asthma Center of Excellence, and the NYCHA Jefferson Houses. From left: Riana Jumamil, MD; Kierstin Luber, DO; Megha Srivastava, MD; and Betty Kolod, MD, Associate Residency Program Director.
The Icahn School of Medicine at Mount Sinai General Preventive Medicine Residency Program has won a prestigious federal grant designed to reduce social inequities in health care through enhanced resident training and expanded public health intervention.
Under terms of the four-year award, the program’s six residents take an intensive summer course in health equity. Residents learn about health literacy, communication, and data analysis skills to address health disparities. They will apply these skills during a longitudinal population health rotation at several Federally Qualified Health Centers (FQHC) throughout New York City, which specialize in homelessness, HIV, and other issues.
“We’re excited for a deeper level of community engagement with these health centers and hope some residents continue their careers at FQHCs,” said Kristin Oliver, MD, MHS, General Preventive Medicine Residency Program Director and Associate Professor, Environmental Medicine and Public Health, Pediatrics, and Medical Education.
All of the program’s residents train in a broad range of topics including population health, quality improvement, lifestyle medicine, cancer prevention and tobacco cessation. Mount Sinai’s program is known for encouraging residents to customize their education according to individual passions. Each resident chooses a particular focus, such research or advocacy.
Recent program graduates include a resident who focused on primary care services for LGBTQ patients and worked with infectious disease doctors at the James J. Peters VA Medical Center in the Bronx to establish an HIV infection prevention program at the Center. Another graduate focused on research to address underrepresentation of the Black, Indigenous and People of Color community in cancer clinical trials.
Residents rotate through the New York City Department of Health and Mental Hygiene, working on issues such as COVID-19 response, measles outbreaks, and reducing pregnancy-associated mortality among Black women. Shifting public policy is also a focus of the residency program. All residents learn to write op-eds or give oral testimony as part of their training.
“Our specialty is so broad, which is what makes our residency so fun and fabulous,” said Dr. Oliver. “Each resident has a different passion, and we help identify mentors and bring their skills to the next level to make a big impact. Everyone brings in something different, then we all gain from it.”
Laura Sirbu, MD, the program’s co-chief resident, is studying how “upstream” factors such as barriers to health care access can be addressed to allow people in nearby communities to live healthier lives.
Dr. Sirbu said she is excited about the grant and that she is enjoying the training. “It’s great to secure extra support,” she said. “Mount Sinai’s program strength is its support of residents to go down different paths, allowing them to choose from a variety of project types and research topics.”
Residents can apply to the program, which is being renamed the Icahn School of Medicine at Mount Sinai Public Health and General Preventive Medicine Residency Program, after completing one year of a clinical residency or after completing a full clinical residency.
During the two-year program, residents earn a Master’s Degree in Public Health. The program has longstanding ties with East Harlem’s nonprofit groups, which enable the program to build relationships and make a bigger impact.
“It’s not just one patient at a time, it’s the entire community,” said Dr. Oliver.
At the Third State Central Hospital in Ulaanbaatar are, left to right, Senzaaya, a scrub nurse, Saadi Ghatan, MD, Ariel Stock, MD, a neurosurgical resident at Montefiore Hospital, and Sloane Sheldon, PhD.
On Friday, May 12, Saadi Ghatan, MD, Chair of Neurosurgery at Mount Sinai West and Mount Sinai Morningside, and Sloane Sheldon, PhD, a clinical neuropsychologist in the Mount Sinai Epilepsy Program, boarded a ten-hour flight from New York to Istanbul. From there, they hopped on another ten-hour flight to Ulaanbaatar, the vibrant capital of Mongolia.
Thanks to support from the Virtue Foundation, a non-profit organization committed to transforming lives through health care, education, and empowerment initiatives, they spent the next two weeks providing medical services to epilepsy patients alongside a team of local doctors and volunteers representing a variety of advanced surgical and medical specialties.
On their first day in Ulaanbaatar, they arrived at the hospital at 8:30 am and met patients until midnight. Local neurosurgeon, Abai Siyez, MD, and epileptologist Bayarmaa Dondov, MD, had selected almost 150 patients for them to evaluate. In Mongolia, the options for epilepsy medications and pre-surgical evaluations are limited. Most patients can only get MRIs, which can be unreliable, and routine outpatient electroencephalograms (EEGs). With limited access to medication that could otherwise help, surgery becomes all the more important and sought after by patients and families.
Dr. Ghatan has a deep connection to Mongolia, as this marked his third visit to the country. His journey began in 2019 when he volunteered to teach local neurosurgeons advanced techniques and provide essential surgical procedures in pediatric neurosurgery. It was during this initial trip that he met Dr. Siyez at Third State Central Hospital in Ulaanbaatar. Dr. Siyez is the grandson of the man known as the founder of Mongolian neurosurgery. Dr. Ghatan introduced the team to neuroendoscopic surgery during that first volunteer trip. At the time, Third State Central Hospital lacked much of the surgical equipment required for these advanced surgical procedures.
Dedicated to his work and eager to advance in Neurosurgery in Mongolia, Dr. Siyez applied for funding from the Asian Development Bank to update the medical facilities at his hospital. Thanks to the grant funding he received, he successfully replaced his hospital’s outdated equipment and applied Dr. Ghatan’s teaching to treat new patients with state-of-the art equipment. One of Dr. Ghatan’s key aims in Mongolia is to continue collaborating with Dr. Siyez and sharing knowledge and techniques with local surgeons, allowing them to perform surgeries independently in the future.
Abai Siyez, MD, center, at the Third State Central Hospital in Ulaanbaatar with his team, performing a left temporal lobectomy surgery. Saadi Ghatan, MD, is shown on the right.
Dr. Ghatan and Dr. Sheldon screened patients in the first three days of their visit. Over the following week and a half, Dr. Ghatan, Dr. Siyez, and the surgical team successfully performed 21 epilepsy surgeries—an extraordinary number—ranging from temporal lobectomy to frontal and parieto-occipital disconnections, awake craniotomy, and more neuroendoscopy. As many of the locals are not fluent in English, Dr. Siyez plays an important role in making sure patients understand Dr. Ghatan’s communication, both culturally and medically.
Dr. Sheldon performed pre-surgical neuropsychological evaluations on patients. She administered patients with the Repeatable Battery for the Assessment of Neuropsychological Status (RBANS), a test used for evaluating cognitive functioning. Understanding the limitations of the test, which is designed for an American population, she worked closely with an interpreter who helped ensure the accuracy and the cultural appropriateness of the testing materials. This was her first medical trip to Mongolia, and she was impressed by how open and eager the locals were to receive a neuropsychological evaluation. In addition to seeing patients, she also delivered a lecture on neuropsychology with neurologists and psychiatrists in the audience, which was a very rewarding experience.
For Dr. Ghatan, the trip was particularly meaningful because he was able to see and interact with the patients he had operated on during his previous trips.
“Seeing these lovely people living better lives with much more independence is gratifying,” he says.
Follow up, of course, is critical, and after these visits, Dr. Siyez shares regular updates about the patients they saw. They are planning to organize a monthly/quarterly case management conference to streamline information sharing.
With so much demand for these surgical procedures, and a successful track record of working with and training local doctors like Dr. Siyez, these two Mount Sinai ambassadors hope this continued connection will motivate the hospital in Mongolia to invest in more resources and focus on building better collaborations between neurologists, neuropsychologists, and neurosurgeons.
Dr. Sheldon and Dr. Ghatan are both looking forward making another volunteer trip to continue to improve the lives of people living with epilepsy and transfer knowledge to doctors in Mongolia. They were struck by how open and optimistic their patients were.
“The patients and their families were strong, resilient, and extraordinarily grateful,” says Dr. Sheldon. “I was so impressed by how open the locals are to take extra measures to ensure that they get the treatment they need and deserve.”
Sidney Hankerson, MD, MBA, was the keynote speaker, and led the discussion.
The Growth in Operations, Administration, and Leadership Society (GOALS) Employee Resource Group (ERG) hosted its quarterly outing at Mount Sinai’s Corporate Services Center in June to recognize National Mental Health Awareness Month.
This event, coordinated by Shawn Lee, Associate Director of Operations for the Central Billing Office at the Mount Sinai Health System, brought together about 20 Black men from across the Mount Sinai community to have a candid conversation about the importance of mental health and surmounting the stigmas on mental health care.
The event’s keynote speaker was Sidney Hankerson, MD, MBA, Vice Chair of Community Engagement and Associate Professor of Psychiatry, and Population Health Science and Policy at the Icahn School of Medicine at Mount Sinai. Dr. Hankerson, who is a nationally recognized expert at engaging faith- and community-based organizations to increase access to culturally relevant mental health care, facilitated the conversation and provided information on how to manage the challenges that Black men may encounter not only in health care but in their personal lives, as well.
Men, regardless of their race or ethnicity, have lower rates of seeking mental health services compared with women, Dr. Hankerson said. But Black men also face a complex array of socio-cultural factors, including racism and discrimination, misdiagnosis and clinician bias, and the common misconception that seeking help is a sign of weakness.
Among the tools available to support Black men’s mental health include culturally competent care, connections to religious communities that support mental health, exercise and behavioral activation, and social support. “I was pleased to see so many of our Mount Sinai brothers come together to create a sense of community for Black men,” said Reginald Miller, DVM, DACLAM, Dean for Research Operations and Infrastructure and Professor of Comparative Medicine and Surgery, and Environmental Health and Public Health at Icahn Mount Sinai. “Building a supportive network of Black males has been a main focus for GOALS.”
“We wanted to create a safe space where Black men can feel heard while also being able to connect with like-minded individuals, with whom they probably would have never met without a forum like this,” said Mr. Lee. “We look forward to expanding our GOALS network, collaborating with other groups, and aligning with system initiatives to foster equitable pathways for our members.”
The annual Dubin Breast Center Fact vs. Fiction symposium provides a forum for Mount Sinai’s nationally recognized physician-researchers to share the latest breakthroughs in breast cancer care and to answer questions related to cutting-edge topics in adolescent and women’s health.
More than 160 guests attended the event on Monday, May 22, raising more than $180,000 in support of the Center. Held at the Harmonie Club in New York, the event was the most attended ever and sold out for the first time.
Leading the event were Mount Sinai Health System Trustee Eva Andersson-Dubin, MD, who founded the Center, which is part of The Tisch Cancer Institute, and Elisa Port, MD, FACS, Chief of Breast Surgery and Director of the Center.
In her opening remarks, Dr. Port emphasized the Center’s continued commitment to providing the most advanced treatment options to all patients.
“The Dubin Breast Center has become a destination in breast cancer care, not only in the city, but in the country and the world. We’re getting patients coming from all over, knowing that the care we deliver is exceptional,” she said. “It’s important to note that what really distinguishes our Center is that we don’t treat patients with breast cancer. We treat people, and we treat people regardless of the ability to pay—that’s always been part of our mission.”
Panelists from left: Amy Tiersten, MD; Christina Weltz, MD; Gylynthia E. Trotman, MD, MPH; Laurie Margolies, MD, FSBI, FACR; and Jeffrey Mechanick, MD.
Dr. Port served as moderator for the discussion with a panel of Mount Sinai experts, which included Amy Tiersten, MD; Christina Weltz, MD; Gylynthia E. Trotman, MD, MPH; Laurie Margolies, MD, FSBI, FACR; and Jeffrey Mechanick, MD. Watch the recording of the event here.
Dr. Tiersten, a renowned medical oncologist, addressed the challenges faced by women of child-bearing years with breast cancer. She pointed to exciting results of a recent clinical trial that studied 500 women aged 42 and under with Stage 1-3 breast cancer, who had been taking certain cancer-fighting medications for 18 to 30 months; these women paused their drug regimen for two years while they attempted to conceive, carry a pregnancy, and breastfeed. About 75 percent of the women in the trial had at least one pregnancy during that time, with no negative effects on their babies. Importantly, the study also found that none of the women appeared to have a higher risk of breast cancer recurrence.
That information was life-changing for Suzanne Foote, a Dubin Breast Center patient who shared her inspirational story at the event. She began regular screenings in her 20s, after learning that she has an inherited PALB2 gene mutation that carries an increased risk for developing the disease. Her mother died from breast cancer when she was only 43. Suzanne Foote was diagnosed in 2019, less than a year after marrying her husband, Mark.
“It was a tremendous shock,” she said, “which reverberated further when we realized cancer would be a hurdle in our quest to start a family.”
Thankfully, her cancer was caught early. Even so, she had a bilateral mastectomy to reduce the chance of the disease returning. Drs. Port and Tiersten also recommended that she undergo in vitro fertilization since some treatments for breast cancer, such as certain types of chemotherapy, can cause infertility. Later on, after consulting with Dr. Tiersten, she decided to take a break from therapy to get pregnant. Her twins, Peter and Josephine, were born at Mount Sinai in September of 2022.
“I was lucky to spend time with the amazing doctors at the Dubin Center. As a result of the time that they spent, here I am, enjoying the best time of my life,” she said. “JoJo and Pete are turning eight months, and I’m still healthy and cancer free.”
The Dubin Breast Center was created in 2011 to provide comprehensive, personalized care for every aspect of breast health, from prevention of disease through survivorship. It offers a full range of services—including the most advanced diagnostics and leading-edge treatments—in one convenient, state-of-the-art location. The Center is also unique for its emphasis on holistic therapies, such as massage, yoga, and meditation, which can promote healing and improve one’s overall well-being.
