Sep 11, 2018 | Community, Engagement, Featured
From left: moderator David Epstein, Director, Domestic Human Resources, Doctors Without Borders; with Mount Sinai’s Pamela Y. Abner, MPA, Vice President, Chief Administrative Officer, Office for Diversity and Inclusion; and Barbara Warren, PsyD, Director, LGBT Programs and Policies, who was a panelist at the event.
The Mount Sinai Health System recently hosted the National Diversity Council’s inaugural Tri-State Health Care Diversity Summit at the Corporate Services Center, which brought together nearly 100 health care administrators and diversity and inclusion professionals from across the region. The Council, a nonprofit organization that advances inclusiveness in the private, public, and nonprofit sectors, presented the Health System with a Health Care Diversity Excellence Award, recognizing Mount Sinai’s deep commitment to diversity and inclusion in the workplace and surrounding communities.
“This event provided a valuable forum for sharing and learning,” says Mary Koshy, MPA, Associate Director, Office for Diversity and Inclusion, Mount Sinai Health System. “The Council received such positive feedback that we were asked to host the event again next year.”
Showing respect and understanding for people of all backgrounds improves patient satisfaction—benefiting both patients’ well-being and a medical institution’s bottom line, panelists said. The keynote speaker, Mecca Santana, Senior Vice President of Diversity, Inclusion, and Community Engagement, Westchester Medical Center Health Network, said it was also important to consider diversity in mentoring, retention, and promotion of staff. “Diversity is being invited to the party,” she said. “Inclusion is being asked to dance.”
Sep 11, 2018 | Community, Engagement, Featured
Students in the Nanotechnology course, from left: Ava Cardillo, Diven Duran, Daniel Musheev, and Kai Kumeno.
Parissa Tabrizian, MD, Professor of Surgery, center, gave a tour of operating rooms at The Mount Sinai Hospital to participants in “Saturday at Sinai.”
More than 120 high school, college, and graduate students aspiring to a broad range of careers in health participated this summer in internships and talent pipeline programs throughout the Mount Sinai Health System. Two units of the Office for Diversity and Inclusion (ODI)—Corporate Health System Affairs and the Center for Excellence in Youth Education (CEYE)—supported initiatives to provide opportunities in medicine, science, health administration, real estate, and technology to students from underrepresented backgrounds.
“The experience that I’ve had at Mount Sinai has helped me target what type of biomedical engineer I want to become in the future,” says Awa Bagayoko, who participated in CEYE’s Nanotechnology course. “The program also reaffirmed my interest in medicine.”
Israa Maarouf was an Information Technology intern.
This year marked the be.inning of a formal partnership between Mount Sinai and the New York City Department of Education (DOE) to off er internships to high school students in the departments led by Kumar Chatani, MBA, Executive Vice President and Chief Information Officer, Mount Sinai Health System; and Kenneth Holden, Senior Vice President, Real Estate Services & Facilities. “Twenty-six interns gained hands-on experiences in information technology; planning, design, and construction; engineering; and property management,” says Shana Dacon, MPH, MBA, Assistant Director, Office for Diversity and Inclusion. “We will continue to work with the DOE to expand opportunities for students during the academic year.”
Fourteen more students—from high school to graduate school—had internships in clinical departments, patient experience, population health, and diversity management, supported by ODI in partnership with organizations including America Needs You; the All Stars Project, Inc.; the Greater New York Hospital Association; the Institute for Diversity and Health Equity; and Prep for Prep.
This year, ODI also launched Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual, and Transgender Young Queer Urban Teens for Health (LGBT YQUTH) in Medicine—a talent pipeline program for careers in health care. In the program, ODI staff and members of the Icahn School of Medicine at Mount Sinai’s Stonewall Alliance student group gave informational talks to LGBT youth organizations throughout the city. “In June, we welcomed participants from the talks to the pilot ‘Saturday at Sinai’ event,” says Richard Cancio, MPH, Program Manager for LGBT Health Services, Mount Sinai Health System. The free event included interactive activities; a tour of The Mount Sinai Hospital; and a panel of public health researchers, nursing and medical students, and graduate school alumni.
CEYE student Awa Bagayoko toured Sinai BioDesign.
CEYE’s six-week summer internship programs attracted 73 high school students from across New York City. Students participated in the Fruit Fly Genomics or Nanotechnology research courses; the Clinical Internship program; or the Lloyd Sherman Scholars program.
CEYE’s research courses met daily, with students receiving lecture-based instruction coupled with activities in the Icahn School of Medicine’s teaching laboratories, where projects included studying the behavior of fruit flies kept in isolation, and exploring silver nanoparticles and their medical implications. Clinical Internship participants were matched with faculty and staff and shadowed them in jobs throughout The Mount Sinai Hospital. In the Lloyd Sherman Scholars program, first-year participants took a Biotechnology course, and second-year scholars were placed in mentored research labs. In another two-year program, 14 interns who worked in labs during the school year returned in the summer to continue their work, assisting in areas of study including ovarian cancer survival rates and engineered cardiac tissue. All of the research interns plan to submit their summer work to the upcoming New York City Science and Engineering Fair.
“My internship showed me how hands-on science is,” says Brandon Soto, a first-year Sherman Scholar. “It also showed me that there are a lot of problems in the world that can be solved with science.”
Updated on Nov 14, 2025 | Community, Engagement
The Mount Sinai contingent at the New York City Pride Parade in Manhattan.
The Mount Sinai Health System recently took part in two festive Pride Month events. In the Queens Pride Parade, held on Sunday, June 3, in Jackson Heights, dozens of employees walked behind a Mount Sinai banner wearing T-shirts that read, “We Take Pride in Your Health.”
A group of 75 employees were among the 40,000 marchers in the 49th annual New York City Pride Parade on Sunday, June 24, in Manhattan. During the march, the Health System also participated in the 25th annual PrideFest street fair in Greenwich Village. Staff of Mount Sinai’s LGBT Health Services and Institute for Advanced Medicine distributed free condoms, pamphlets, and Mount Sinai favors.
From left: Carla Moscoso, Director, Practice Operations, Mount Sinai Queens; Diana Rosario, Population Health Care Coordinator; and Richard Cancio, MPH, Program Manager for LGBT Health Services, Mount Sinai Health System, at the Queens Pride Parade.
Updated on Nov 14, 2025 | Community, Engagement, Featured
Gary C. Butts, MD, left, and Dennis S. Charney, MD, at the Champions of Health Awards event, where the Mount Sinai Health System was honored.
The Mount Sinai Health System has received the National Medical Fellowships (NMF) Leadership in Diversity Award. 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, accepted the award on Wednesday, May 9, at NMF’s Champions of Health Awards event in Manhattan.
“It is important that we continue to support NMF and continue to build on its mission to change the face of medicine,” Dr. Charney said. NMF is a nonprofit organization dedicated to providing scholarships and support to students in minority groups underrepresented in health care. Gary C. Butts, MD, Mount Sinai Health System, has a distinguished history with the group. He received a fellowship as a young medical student and accepted a lifetime achievement award in 2016.
Updated on Nov 14, 2025 | Community, Engagement, Inside
Shaquana Mackey, second from left, accepted donations from members of the HOLA Employee Resource Group at the Corporate Services Center, including the chapter’sleaders, Shawn Lee, left, and Francis Pabon, fourth from left.
Women at a shelter in Brooklyn received spirit-lifting donations thanks to a collaboration of the nonprofit Bowery Residents’ Committee (BRC) and HOLA, the Heritage of Latino Alliance Employee Resource Group at the Mount Sinai Health System. In the effort, called the “Purse Project,” HOLA members collected gently used purses and tote bags and filled them with toiletries. The donations were accepted in April at the Mount Sinai Corporate Services Center by Shaquana Mackey, Clinical Supervisor of BRC’s Lexington Avenue Women’s Residence, which houses 103 women. Ms. Mackey also gave a brief talk on what it means to be homeless in New York City. “A lot of people you wouldn’t think live in a shelter, do live in a shelter, because life happens,” Ms. Mackey said. “You could lose your job today; you could lose your spouse; your house could burn down.” Donations of funds, supplies, or volunteers’ time are always welcome, she said, adding, “Whatever you can give, our ladies are grateful.”
Updated on Nov 14, 2025 | Cardiology, Community, Engagement
Paintings by Harlem artists are brightening the walls of the Cardiac Catheterization Laboratory at Mount Sinai St. Luke’s in a new exhibit called “Art in the Heart.”
The display, which was unveiled at a reception on Thursday, February 15. It features eleven vibrant paintings by three artists: Whitney Bilotta, Tiffany B. Chanel, and Ria Nicole.
The Cardiac Catheterization Laboratory intends to display a regular rotation of local artists’ work with themes of the heart, love, and healing.
“At Mount Sinai Heart we are concerned with the health and healing of the whole person,” says Beth Oliver, DNP, RN, Senior Vice President of Cardiac Services for the Mount Sinai Health System. “Visual artwork in the hospital setting has been shown to reduce stress and pain, and facilitate healing. We are delighted to have the work of community artists on display in our Cardiac Catheterization Laboratory.”
Above, two paintings by Ria Nicole, and a painting by Whitney Bilotta.
