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Mount Sinai Creates LGBTQ+ Medical Fellowship That Will Serve as a National Model of Care

Updated on Nov 14, 2025 | Engagement, Featured

The Mount Sinai Health System in 2020 launched a pioneering one-year medical fellowship program specializing in LGBTQ+ health. Its mission was to create a new primary care specialty that combined expertise in disciplines such as preventive medicine, infectious diseases, gynecology, endocrinology, psychiatry, and research, and provided holistic care to this minority population.

The American Medical Association (AMA) Foundation was so supportive of the idea that it provided Mount Sinai with funding to cover the fellowship for a second year—which begins in July—and develop a model program for future LGBTQ+ fellowships around the country. Recently, the AMA announced plans to fund 10 new fellowships in 2022, many in the South and other areas of the country where LGBTQ+ patients have more limited access to high-quality health care.

Michael M. Gaisa, MD, PhD,

“There are particular needs, both psychosocial and medical, that arise from being members of this community, and I think, until now, that has not been appreciated to the extent that it deserves to be,” says Michael M. Gaisa, MD, PhD, Director of Mount Sinai’s LGBTQ+ Health Care Fellowship, and Professor of Medicine (Infectious Diseases), at the Icahn School of Medicine at Mount Sinai.

One of the fellowships’ goals, Dr. Gaisa says, is to “educate more knowledgeable, competent, and sensitive providers on a national scale.” Mount Sinai’s new fellowship is a “blend of subspecialties that have traditionally been siloed.” Typically, he adds, doctors do not “complete their conventional residencies or fellowships with the breadth of experience bundled into our LGBTQ+ fellowship curriculum, so that’s what we’re trying to accomplish.”

In July, Roy Zucker, MD, will be the first physician to have completed Mount Sinai’s fellowship. An internal medicine and infectious disease doctor who practices in Tel Aviv, Dr. Zucker started the fellowship in New York City during the COVID-19 pandemic last summer. Admittedly, the timing “wasn’t perfect,” he says. But as New York began to open up he was able to transition from providing telehealth to in-person care. He also spent the year conducting research, and working with Mount Sinai Innovation Partners to create an app that would make it easier for gay men to access PrEP, medication that prevents the spread of HIV, through Mount Sinai’s MyChart patient portal.

Dr. Zucker is active on social media and uses his platform to promote the need for health screenings, vaccinations, and harm reduction from recreational drug use among LGBTQ+ people. In June, he held community-wide discussions about harm reduction in drug use in advance of the New York City Pride Parade.

In general, Dr. Zucker says, lesbian women tend not to seek out preventive care. As a result, they do not receive the routine mammograms and Pap tests that would enable them to be diagnosed at earlier stages of breast or cervical cancer when they can be treated more successfully. “In this population there’s many more cancers just because of a lack of screening,” he says.

Roy Zucker, MD

Doctors also need to be educated about LGBTQ+ health, he adds. Some physicians mistakenly assume that lesbians do not have to be screened for cervical cancer because they are not having sex with men. In addition, doctors do not always test gay men accurately for chlamydia and gonorrhea. They perform a standalone urine test instead of swabbing other exposed anatomic sites, such as the rectum and throat, and miss the majority of positive cases.

One mission of the new fellowship is to “export expertise and awareness to other departments within Mount Sinai and on a broader scale,” says Dr. Gaisa. “Hopefully, we can change some existing paradigms and shape awareness and standard clinical practice in a more meaningful way.”

Fellows will work closely with the Mount Sinai Center for Transgender Medicine and Surgery, the Mount Sinai Adolescent Health Center, and departments that are as seemingly far afield as geriatrics. “One day I work on transgender medicine, another day it’s LGBTQ+ psychiatry,” Dr. Zucker says. “I work with addiction medicine, and three days a week I work in HIV and sexually transmitted diseases clinics. For many years, we had physicians who always took care of the LGBTQ+ community—they were called ‘LGBTQ-friendly doctors.’ There was never proper training for that.”

Dr. Zucker’s connection with Mount Sinai began in early 2019, when he arrived from Tel Aviv to begin a one-month observership in HIV training with Antonio Urbina, MD, Professor of Medicine (Infectious Diseases) at Icahn Mount Sinai. When Dr. Zucker inquired why Mount Sinai did not have a fellowship specializing in LGBTQ+ health, Dr. Urbina put him in touch with David C. Thomas, MD, Interim Chair of the Department of Medicine at Icahn Mount Sinai; and David L. Reich, MD, President of The Mount Sinai Hospital and Mount Sinai Queens. That is when the wheels started turning. In 2020, Dr. Zucker returned to Mount Sinai as the inaugural fellow.

He and Dr. Gaisa are aware of only one other LGBTQ+ medical fellowship in the world, a program at the University of California, Los Angeles, which started a year before Mount Sinai’s.

“You say to yourself, ‘I’m sure this program already exists,’ and you start looking and say, ‘Wow, where is it?’” Dr. Zucker says. “This is pioneering. We’re creating the next ambassadors for this specialty called LGBTQ+ medicine and we’re bringing it to the world. One or two people doing this each year is not enough. It’s about passing it forward.”

How Can You Tell if Someone You Know May Have PTSD?

Updated on Jun 30, 2022 | Featured, Mental Health, Psychiatry, Your Health

Many people think post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD) is something that occurs mostly in soldiers returning home from war. Not so. In fact, PTSD affects millions of people throughout the United States, and the numbers are no doubt rising due to the pandemic.

In this Q&A, Jonathan DePierro, PhD, Assistant Professor, Psychiatry, and Clinical and Research Director, Center for Stress, Resilience and Personal Growth at the Icahn School of Medicine at Mount Sinai, explains how PTSD develops, what some of the warning signs are, and why having symptoms of PTSD is not a sign of weakness.

What is PTSD?

PTSD is a mental health condition that can develop after someone goes through a life-threatening event, like a car accident, combat, or a serious illness; or when sudden life-threatening events happen to a loved one. Seeing and hearing about human suffering and death at work over and over, like medics, nurses, and 911 dispatchers do, can also contribute to PTSD.

Jonathan DePierro, PhD

What are the symptoms of PTSD?

PTSD involves four types of symptoms that happen at the same time.

Intrusions – reliving the event with upsetting memories, nightmares, or flashbacks where it truly feels as if the event is happening all over again
Avoidance – trying very hard to avoid any reminders of the trauma, including talking about what happened
Negative thoughts and emotions – feeling depressed, angry, numb, mistrustful, guilty, or ashamed
Hyperarousal – feeling on edge, irritable, having difficulty concentrating, being easily startled, and having poor sleep

These symptoms also need to last for more than a month, be distressing, and/or cause problems for you in your life. Some people may notice changes in their mood, behavior, or relationships right after a trauma; but for others who develop PTSD, symptoms might not develop for many months.

What causes PTSD?

One of the important things to keep in mind about PTSD is that it is the result of a person being exposed to death, threatened death, actual or threatened serious injury, or actual or threatened sexual violence, in one or more of the following ways:

Experiencing it yourself
Witnessing the event(s) firsthand
Learning it happened to a loved one
Indirect exposure to aversive details of the trauma, usually by nature of one’s job

The American Psychiatric Association estimates that about 7 percent of adults in the United States will develop PTSD during their lives. People who do develop PTSD are not “weak.” They have experienced an event that they struggle to understand, and their bodies and brains are “stuck” replaying the event and all the upsetting emotions that come along with it.

How can you recognize the signs of PTSD in someone you know?

People with PTSD struggle to make sense of what happened to them or what they witnessed. They might have upsetting images or memories of the most upsetting parts of the trauma, even though they spend a lot of time trying to avoid anything that might remind them of what happened. The events feel too overwhelming to think or talk about. Spending time with others feels like a lot of work and more stressful, so people with PTSD might withdraw and spent a lot more time alone. Sleep and attention problems are common, because the body is so “on edge” and still reacting as if the trauma is still happening in the present moment.

We also know that people with PTSD tend to see themselves, the future, and other people in their lives through certain “mental filters.” One example is that people with PTSD often blame themselves for things that happened during the trauma, even though that does not make sense. Some of our health care workers experience “moral injury” – blaming themselves all the time for something they did or did not do during the worst of the pandemic.

How is PTSD diagnosed and treated?

If you are concerned that you may be experiencing symptoms of PTSD, speak with your health care provider. They may refer you to a mental health clinician, who can review your symptoms and make a treatment plan. You should also know that depression and PTSD often co-occur, so mention any symptoms of depression you may be experiencing to your providers so they can better understand your needs. If you are concerned about a friend or loved one, speak to them and encourage them to seek help.

Treatment for PTSD directly address avoidance, fear, and negative thoughts. Catching negative thoughts and trying to change them, to make them more realistic and helpful, is a key part of many treatments. Treatment also involves rebuilding a sense of safety that often feels so absent in people with PTSD. Some people with PTSD also find antidepressant medications to be helpful.

Get more information from Mount Sinai about PTSD

Learn more about PTSD from the National Institute for Mental Health

Find additional resources at the National Center for PTSD

Mount Sinai Establishes the First Link Between Ultrafine Air Pollutants and Asthma in Children

Updated on Jun 30, 2022 | Featured, Research

Unlike larger air pollutants, ultrafine particles are able to burrow deeply into the mother’s lungs, cross the placenta, and reach the developing fetus.

The link between prenatal exposure to ultrafine particles in air pollution and the development of asthma in preschool-age children has been established for the first time in the United States by a team of scientists led by Rosalind J. Wright, MD, MPH, Dean for Translational Biomedical Research at the Icahn School of Medicine at Mount Sinai, and Co-Director of the Mount Sinai Institute for Exposomic Research.

Ultrafine particles—the tiniest of toxins released into the air from forest fires, tobacco smoke, automobile and manufacturing emissions, and other sources—are believed to be particularly dangerous to human health. Less than 100 nanometers in diameter or 1/1000th of a human hair, they are able to burrow deeply into the lungs, pass into the bloodstream, and penetrate the placental barrier. Until recently, these particles went largely unmeasured. But increased interest from environmental researchers has led to the development of more sophisticated tools that are beginning to capture the pollutants before they disperse, and link them to health databases.

“If you’re thinking about the placenta as being the gateway into the fetus—these particles can more readily get to the other side and have more direct effects upon the developing infant,” says Dr. Wright. “Once the ultrafine particulates are in the bloodstream they can travel anywhere and have broad health impacts.”

Rosalind J. Wright, MD, MPH

In the study led by Dr. Wright and published recently in the American Journal of Respiratory and Critical Care Medicine, 18 percent of the children of mothers who lived in a higher-risk urban population and were exposed to ultrafine particles during pregnancy developed asthma by the age of three, compared with 7 percent of children in the general population. The study included 376 mothers and their children, most of them Black or Latinx, who lived near high-traffic roadways in the Boston metropolitan area. More than half of the mothers reported having a high school education or less.

The researchers found that female children, in particular, were more susceptible to asthma when exposed to these particles during the third trimester of their mother’s pregnancy, whereas male children had an elevated risk when exposed throughout the pregnancy. According to the research team, further investigation will be needed to explain these differences.

“This is the first study in the United States to show this is happening in our cities in the Northeast,” says Dr. Wright. “We now have to look across different cities and settings, such as areas where we’re experiencing wildfires.”

Measuring the harmful effects of ultrafine particles on other parts of the body needs to be done, as well. “Here we’re focused on pregnancy and asthma, but particulate air pollutants can also affect brain development, so, for example, we need to be looking at ultrafine particles exposure in pregnancy in relation to neurodevelopment in kids, too,” she says.

The study—a collaboration between Dr. Wright, the Department of Civil and Environmental Engineering at Tufts University, and researchers at Harvard University—also sheds light on health disparities, since the mothers lived in underprivileged neighborhoods that tend to be closer to congested roadways with higher levels of air pollution.

“Some people don’t have a lot of choices related to affordable housing. There’s also other factors in these communities impacting health. For example, these populations may experience a lot more stress,” says Dr. Wright. “Higher stress interacts with air pollution to magnify the effects of pollutants. Financial strain, more toxic work environments, more adverse life events to deal with. These emotional challenges are pushing and pulling on the same systems in our bodies that are trying to keep us on a healthy trajectory. This includes our immune system, which plays a significant role in asthma risk. There is an optimal balance that we all strive to maintain and when we are stressed and don’t get enough sleep or we’re not eating right, we’re more likely to get sick. Look at how COVID-19 is hitting those same populations harder. They’re already breathing more toxins in the air and experiencing greater stress that throws our immune system out of balance, and this can impact someone’s vulnerability to viral infections.”

The good news, she says, is that there are short-term ways to mitigate the negative effects of stress and pollution, and health care providers have an important role in educating the public, particularly pregnant women.

“We don’t want to just keep telling people these toxins are out there,” Dr. Wright adds. “We want them to know there are things they can do to counter them.”

These include regular exercise and a diet high in antioxidants, such as beans and berries, and certain polyunsaturated fatty acids found in salmon, walnuts, and sunflower seeds.

“At the same time,” she says, “we have to work on longer-term solutions, such as increasing access to healthy, affordable housing, better educational and job opportunities, and nutritious foods.”

How the News About the New York Yankees and COVID-19 Shows Vaccines Are Working

Jun 8, 2021 | Featured, Vaccines, Your Health

Vaccination rates across the country are continuing to rise, with nearly 300 million doses given so far. Many sports teams set thresholds to encourage player and staff vaccination as vaccine eligibility criteria expanded in order to get back to in-person games, tournaments, and celebrations.

So the news that nine members of the New York Yankees tested positive for COVID-19 raised some concerns and generated some headlines.

But experts say there is little reason for concern. In fact, this situation shows the vaccines are working as expected, as Brian Cashman, general manager of the Yankees, was quick to note on the Yankees official Twitter account.

In this Q&A, Gopi Patel, MD, Hospital Epidemiologist at The Mount Sinai Hospital, Medical Director for Antimicrobial Stewardship for the Mount Sinai Health System, and Associate Professor of Medicine (Infectious Diseases) at the Icahn School of Medicine at Mount Sinai, explains why the news about the Yankees provides more evidence that the COVID-19 vaccines are helping to end the pandemic by reducing the number of people who get very sick from the infection.

Many people may have been surprised or concerned when they heard that in one week, nine cases of COVID-19 were found in fully vaccinated members of the New York Yankees organization. Is that a concern to you?

It was a concern in the way it was first presented, which was that even though vaccinated, nine individuals contracted COVID-19. What really should have been emphasized is this: among those nine individuals, one had very mild disease, and the other eight were completely asymptomatic, meaning they did not show any symptoms of infection.

We have to remember that the practices of professional sports teams and the entertainment industry are very different from what we do in day-to-day life. They are tested frequently, in some cases daily, and these cases may not have detected if they didn’t have those protocols in place. What is especially important is, if we go back months ago, these individuals with COVID-19 may not have been asymptomatic. They may have been sick or even hospitalized with severe disease, and maybe in some settings they may have passed away.

Gopi Patel, MD

Although it’s not great for anybody to have COVID-19, what is very encouraging is that this situation with the Yankees shows that these vaccines work. They all received the Johnson and Johnson vaccine. We know vaccines prevent severe disease, hospitalizations, and people passing away from COVID-19. However, no vaccine is 100 percent, so it does mean that we need to emphasize the other things that we recommend: Wear masks and practice social distancing as appropriate. Make sure everybody around you is vaccinated, and practice behaviors that we’ve been asking people to practice if you don’t know the vaccination status of your colleagues or the individuals in your surroundings.

What are asymptomatic infections?

An asymptomatic infection is one where you don’t have symptoms that have been associated with COVID-19. You don’t have fever, you don’t have runny nose, and you don’t have a cough. You don’t feel what we call flu-like. You don’t have aches or pains; you haven’t lost your sense of smell. You don’t really feel sick.

What are breakthrough infections?

Breakthrough infections are infections that have been diagnosed in individuals who are two weeks or more out from their last dose of a COVID-19 vaccine. That’s 14 days or more out from one dose of the Johnson and Johnson vaccine, and that’s 14 days out from the second dose of either the Moderna or the Pfizer vaccines.

Since there is a possibility, albeit small, of a so-called breakthrough infection, should I continue masking and social distancing even though I am fully vaccinated?

It depends on who you’re around. You should feel confident that everyone is “safe” if you’re around a lot of people in your herd or your bubble who are fully vaccinated; if your whole family is vaccinated, and you’re aware of what kind of things they do, your risk of being infected if vaccinated is low. However, people could be immunocompromised, and vaccines are not 100 percent. Those are the patients we worry about with vaccines, because we don’t know how well vaccines will work in that population, although we are learning more, and we still encourage them to get vaccinated after speaking to their providers. If you have someone you’re visiting and they are vaccinated but they have some underlying immunocompromising condition, it’s probably best for you to mask and for them to mask too. If you’re at the grocery store or on public transportation, I would still recommend masking, because you don’t know what’s going on around you, and you don’t really know right now who’s vaccinated and who’s not.

If I am fully vaccinated, should I worry that I could pass the infection along to others?

We still are exploring and learning more about how this infection is transmitted among vaccinated individuals, so in the case of the Yankees, we don’t know how that happened. They did get the Johnson and Johnson vaccine, which is not as highly effective as the Pfizer or Moderna vaccine in preventing symptomatic infections but still very effective at preventing serious infections, hospitalizations, and death. We need to know in the case of the Yankees, was this a specific variant of concern? Was there a “super-spreader event” like an indoor gathering or an outing? We hope to learn more. I’m sure this is being investigated fully. I can’t really tell you if you personally should be worried about a breakthrough infection, but I do think you are less likely to have a severe infection if you are fully vaccinated.

What about spreading the infection to my unvaccinated children?

We always need to be concerned about our kids, depending on how old they are. If they’re less than 12, they may not be eligible to be vaccinated for a little bit longer, so we need to make sure we keep them safe. Those who are vaccinated may still be coming home to someone who is not vaccinated or interacting with someone who can’t be vaccinated at this time, such as those who may be immunocompromised or have other medical problems. It’s best to model the behavior you want kids to model. I’m the parent of a seven year old, so when she is wearing her mask, I’m wearing mine.

Should I be concerned about other people not getting vaccinated?

This is a global pandemic, and we all need to do our part. It’s important that if you have a vaccine story, if there’s a reason that you elected to get vaccinated, you share that story with others. We need to help people get to the place where they’re ready to be vaccinated. Some people have personal concerns about their medical condition; we ask that they speak to their health care provider.

I usually ask people if they can have conversations with at least two other people who are skeptical about vaccines or have concerns about vaccines, in a nonjudgmental way, and try to figure out what their concerns are. At least turn them to the right information, whether it be our website or the Centers for Disease Control or the New York City Department of Health and Mental Hygiene or the New York State Department of Health. I think it’s helpful to get people the information that they need to make the decision that’s best for them. It is one of the things that’s going to help this world get back to normal.

Get information from Mount Sinai about COVID-19 vaccinations and appointments

Rachel Levine, MD, Reflects on Her Years at Mount Sinai and Her Historic Confirmation

Updated on Nov 14, 2025 | Engagement, Featured, Public Health

Rachel Levine, MD, was sworn in as Assistant Secretary for Health on March 26, 2021.

Rachel Levine, MD, a longtime leader in public health, was sworn in as Assistant Secretary for Health in the Department of Health and Human Services in March 2021—making history as the first openly transgender federal official to be confirmed by the U.S. Senate. Dr. Levine, who began her medical career at Mount Sinai, recently took part in an interview with Mount Sinai Today about her years of training and the road ahead.

Dr. Levine took on her new post after nearly 40 years in adolescent health and public health, most recently serving as Pennsylvania’s Secretary of Health. At her confirmation, she said, “I am both humbled by the opportunity and ready for the job.”

As a young physician at Mount Sinai, was becoming a national leader in public health one of your goals?

I received fantastic training in pediatrics and adolescent medicine at Mount Sinai, and at the time I really saw my career in academic medicine. I did my residency program at Mount Sinai from 1983 to 1986. I was chief resident from 1986 to 1987. I did my fellowship from 1987 to 1988, and then I was part of the voluntary faculty and kept my association with Mount Sinai through 1993, when I left to go to the Penn State College of Medicine. It was 10 years of association with Mount Sinai, and I found it to be absolutely wonderful. But I actually did not see myself in the type of role that I have now.

Were there experiences at Mount Sinai that you found especially formative?

Serving as Chief Resident of Pediatrics at The Mount Sinai Hospital was really one of the formative leadership experiences of my life. I had a tremendous amount of responsibility in terms of leading 25 to 30 residents, helping them with all the patients on all the floors, dealing with emergencies, and taking on administrative responsibilities for the unit—all under the mentorship of Kurt Hirschhorn, MD, then the Chair of Pediatrics, and Alexander Hyatt, MD, the Vice Chair. In years since, I think the job has been divided among two or three people, so the Chief Resident in 1986 had a lot of responsibility. I kind of joke that only now have I finally found a job that equals being Chief Resident of Pediatrics at The Mount Sinai Hospital.

Dr. Levine was the keynote speaker at Mount Sinai’s White Coat Ceremony in 2015.

Could you talk about a few of your mentors at Mount Sinai?

Probably the biggest mentor I have had in medicine is Dr. Hirschhorn, Professor Emeritus of Pediatrics, Genetics, and Medicine, and Chairman Emeritus of Pediatrics. He is just an outstanding academic medicine physician, and he was a great chair and mentor. One of my most vivid memories of Mount Sinai was morning reports, where we would present the cases that came in the night before, and Dr. Hirschhorn was always there. We would discuss the admissions and then the diagnoses and the challenges, and it was a fantastic formative learning experience.

There are so many other mentors I could name, including Dr. Hyatt; Scott Barnett, MD; Les Jaffe, MD, who was head of the adolescent program during my entire time at Mount Sinai, and Angela Diaz, MD, PhD, MPH, Director of the Mount Sinai Adolescent Health Center. Dr. Diaz was a third-year resident when I was an intern and an attending in the adolescent clinic when I was a fellow. That may not seem like much of a difference, but she was senior to me, always a couple of years ahead. What I remember most from those days was her great compassion and dedication. Then and now, she is passionate about adolescent medicine and taking care of teens in the community.

The COVID-19 response was one of your top priorities as Pennsylvania’s Secretary of Health and in your federal position now. What are the biggest challenges in the pandemic now?

Our main focus now is the vaccination program. For months it was supply and the challenge of distribution and administration. But I think we are exactly at that tipping point where the most important challenge is vaccine hesitancy. Through the efforts of the Biden-Harris administration, we now have adequate supply of three safe and effective vaccines, but we now need to work past people’s hesitancy about the vaccines. One role that I hope to play is helping with this messaging as the vaccines receive Emergency Use Authorization for adolescents and perhaps younger children.

What are your other top priorities as Assistant Secretary for Health?

Addressing the continuing issue of the opioid crisis and overdoses is an important priority. We are also focusing on the public health impacts of environmental health and climate change. In an executive order, President Biden has created a new Office for Climate Change and Health Equity, and that is part of my office. As our climate changes and we look at the public health impacts, we want to make sure that we’re looking at vulnerable communities—African American communities, Latino communities, and American Indian and Native Alaskan communities. We know that there are significant health disparities, and we’re concerned that these communities are bearing the brunt of the impacts of climate change. We want to study these disparities and develop policies to address them.

What does the historic nature of your appointment mean to you?

I like to say that I may be the first transgender federal official to be confirmed by the Senate, but I won’t be the last. And here I’m building on a quote from Vice President Harris, who said that as a Black and South Asian woman, “I may be the first to hold this office, but I won’t be the last.” We’ve come a long way in the LGBTQ community, but we certainly have a long road ahead. We need to raise awareness, and we need to work in terms of health equity for LGBTQ individuals, particularly LGBTQ youth.

You were confirmed by a bipartisan vote of 52-48, but in your hearing you faced some opposition and adverse reactions. How do you handle this kind of situation?

I really think that any hostility comes from a place of fear—that people fear what they don’t understand, and so I want to educate people. Even my being the Assistant Secretary for Health shows people that transgender individuals and LGBTQ individuals are like everyone else. We’re physicians; we’re teachers; we’re lawyers; we are everywhere in society and in our government as well. And I want to show LGBTQ youth that with hard work and perseverance you can be anyone, and you can be anything.

Colleagues Salute Rachel Levine, MD:

“Dr. Levine’s appointment is both historic and emblematic of how far we have come in recognizing the accomplishments and the contributions of LGBTQI people to making our health care and our society more equitable, inclusive, and compassionate for all. Mount Sinai gave Dr. Levine a powerful foundation to build on, and today it is meaningful that during Pride Month 2021, we celebrate one of our alumni and acknowledge our ongoing commitment to enhancing and expanding service, education, and advocacy for the diverse LGBTQI communities we serve.” -Barbara Warren, PsyD, CPXP, Senior Director, LGBT Programs and Policies, Mount Sinai Office for Diversity and Inclusion

“I could not be more thrilled for Dr. Levine, or more proud of her. She is enormously accomplished and a fierce proponent of health equity, adolescent medicine, and transgender health—all critical issues that are close to my heart. We worked together when she did her pediatric training and Adolescent Medicine fellowship at Mount Sinai. I could see even then just how talented, dedicated, and compassionate she was. Dr. Levine’s confirmation is a truly historic moment, and I cannot think of anyone more deserving.” – Angela Diaz, MD, PhD, MPH, Director of the Mount Sinai Adolescent Health Center

“During her confirmation hearing, Dr. Levine never lost protocol. She remained very strong and confident in where she was coming from, and that resonated with what I remember about her back at the Adolescent Health Clinic. I never ever saw her get upset about anything; she was always so competent, calm, and confident, and the patients really liked her as their physician. I’ve enjoyed following her career, and she is a perfect fit for the position.” – Leslie Jaffe, MD, Director of Mount Sinai Adolescent Health Center, 1982-1989

”Dr. Levine is a great communicator with a passion for public health, and she will do a great amount of good in her areas of focus, which include opioid addiction and the COVID-19 response. That she has also been willing as a trans woman to stand up and be so visible is very important for other trans people to see for reassurance and for cisgender people to see as we break down barriers. It is an honor for us at Mount Sinai to be associated with a pioneer in an area where we now take a leadership role.” – Joshua D. Safer, MD, Executive Director of the Mount Sinai Center for Transgender Medicine and Surgery

Noted Historian Lonnie G. Bunch, III, PhD, Discusses COVID-19, the Death of George Floyd, and Combating Racism in Health Care

Updated on Nov 14, 2025 | Community, Engagement, Featured

During the week leading up to the Icahn School of Medicine at Mount Sinai’s 52nd Annual Commencement on Friday, May 14, medical student Rachel Wilkinson held a virtual “fireside chat” with historian and educator Lonnie G. Bunch, III, PhD, Secretary of the Smithsonian Institution. At Icahn Mount Sinai’s Commencement, Ms. Wilkinson received her medical degree, and Dr. Bunch—Founding Director of the Smithsonian’s National Museum of African American History and Culture, which opened in 2016—was awarded an honorary Doctorate of Humane Letters.

Their 50-minute discussion centered on race and history and how the COVID-19 pandemic and the death of George Floyd will be remembered by future generations. Without a doubt, Dr. Bunch said, the past 18 months mark one of the most important periods in American history.

Dr. Wilkinson: How will the story of 2020-2021 be told in years to come?

Dr. Bunch: George Floyd’s murder, the insurrection at the Capitol on January 6, the devastation of COVID-19 on Americans generally and on people of color specifically—that is something historians will be writing about for generations to come. There are many moments in history that are an inflection point, where it illuminates all the dark corners of our experience, and that’s what these last two years have done: they’ve forced us to confront so many things etched by racism.

The challenge for historians is what will happen. Is this going to be a sprint that ends or a long wave that allows us to be a more transformative and fairer nation? Are we a country that lives up to our ideals or the country that realizes fairness is limited and only certain people have access to the American dream?

Dr. Wilkinson: Is there something missing that people are getting wrong about the past year and a half?

Dr. Bunch: You want people to realize this is not someone else’s story, but their story too, regardless of race, regardless of how long their family has been in this country. If we can get people to realize we’re in this together then there’s hope for a future.

Dr. Wilkinson: Thousands of us are graduating this year as doctors and biomedical scientists, and we’re trying to understand what our role should be in combating racism. What do you see as the role of health care providers?

Dr. Bunch: The fundamental challenge is that the public health profession has used people of color as subjects rather than patients, and there is concern about fairness within the health care system. Your profession needs to embrace its history. Your profession needs to understand that it has contributed to some of the best and some of the worst outcomes in health care. Understand it, own it, and begin to look internally at what that means—a broader, more inclusive group of people going through medical school. Your job is to master your profession and to recognize that it’s not enough to be a good doctor; you’ve got to be a good person and fight the good fight.

Dr. Wilkinson: Where does medical education fit into confronting racism or injustice, overall?

Dr. Bunch: I hear many doctors say it’s a personal choice how you live your life, eat, and exercise. But it’s also a fact that if you live in Princeton, New Jersey, versus living in Trenton, New Jersey, you have a much longer life expectancy. We have to confront these issues and make sure we create a culture where health care is accessible and given fairly to all. It means you’re going to have to confront structural racism and assumptions, and when people of color come into an emergency room you’re going to have to think about them a little differently than what your initial reaction might be, that you’re being fair in giving them the treatments they need.

Dr. Wilkinson: How can health systems push the envelope on racial justice?

Dr. Bunch: I don’t want to hear doctors saying, “I can’t get out of my lane.” Your lane is really the whole system of health care. The health care community has a lot of power, a lot of resources. John Lewis (the late politician and civil rights leader), used to say to me, “Despair slows you down.” For the medical profession it’s time to own the challenge.

Dr. Wilkinson: What are you most proud of in terms of our nation’s progress toward racial justice?

Dr. Bunch: As a historian, what’s clear to me is that America has moved in dramatic ways. What I take from history is the sense that change is possible but change is not permanent. We’ve seen moments of great leaps forward and moments of moving back. What concerns me the most is the belief that success for an individual means success for all, and that’s not true. There are people of all genders and races who you can point at and say, “Look, we have a woman CEO of a Fortune 500 company, or we have an African American.” Individual success is key, but until that trickles down to the entire community it really is just an anomaly, not the way it should be. You’re only successful if the group furthest removed from success is beginning to reap the benefit of that success.

Dr. Wilkinson: Where do we find sources of hope?

Dr. Bunch: I find hope in history. History is a reservoir I dip into and I see (the abolitionist and statesman) Frederick Douglass and Madam C.J. Walker (the first Black female millionaire in America). People who didn’t give up, people who should have given up. I also get hope from people like you and my daughter (an emergency medicine physician), people who are doing things I could never have imagined, people who say, “I will be the best in my profession and the best person of color I can be.” When I talk to people around the world—from Italy and Israel and London—and I hear them saying, “Black lives matter.” I take hope from the fact that we’re now in a world where it’s harder to keep secrets. By illuminating examples of horrible moments you can change and address those.

Dr. Wilkinson: What motivated you to take on the massive challenge of building the National Museum of African American History and Culture?

Dr. Bunch: This idea of building a museum was floating around for 100 years and began with Black Civil War veterans saying, “Why not tell our story too?” I realized if we could build a national Museum of African American History and Culture on the Mall (in Washington, D.C.) as part of the Smithsonian, that would nurture the souls of my ancestors so that African Americans would not be seen as an ancillary story but central to who we are as Americans. It’s not just a story of woe is me or pain. It’s a story of resiliency.

My favorite part of the museum is helping people understand how important slavery is to all of us—that these are people whose lives dramatically altered America. Resiliency is really at the heart of the Black experience.

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