Featured | Mount Sinai Today

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.

Watch the full discussion

Mount Sinai Awarded $42 Million to Prepare for Future Pandemics and Advance Influenza Research

May 25, 2021 | COVID-19, Featured, Research

Adolfo García-Sastre, PhD, left, and Shashank Tripathi, PhD, Assistant Professor of Microbiology. File photo

The National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases (NIAID) has awarded the Icahn School of Medicine at Mount Sinai a seven-year contract valued at more than $42 million to advance basic research into influenza and COVID-19, and prepare for future pandemics.

This marks the third time Mount Sinai has received a seven-year NIAID contract under the leadership of Adolfo García-Sastre, PhD, Director of the Global Health and Emerging Pathogens Institute and Irene and Dr. Arthur M. Fishberg Professor of Medicine, who serves as Principal Investigator. Florian Krammer, PhD, Mount Sinai Professor in Vaccinology; and Viviana Simon, MD, PhD, Professor of Microbiology, Pathology, and Medicine (Infectious Diseases), will serve as the contract’s co-investigators.

“This contract represents 21 years of continuity in conducting research that leads to better treatments, better vaccines, better disease management, and better prevention of pandemics,” says Dr. García-Sastre.

The team’s work will lay the foundation for diagnostics, therapeutics, and clinical trials, but will not include the actual implementation of the clinical trials. The contract also calls for the surveillance of emerging pathogens, risk assessment studies on as many as 15 respiratory viruses each year, and training of postdoctoral fellows and graduate students. “Training is part of the fight against infectious diseases. You need the people and the weapons,” says Dr. García-Sastre.

Mount Sinai’s previous NIAID contracts have led to many advances. In response to the 2009 H1N1 flu pandemic, Dr. García-Sastre; Peter Palese, PhD, Chair of the Department of Microbiology; and Dr. Krammer launched their seminal work in developing a universal influenza vaccine. The vaccine— administered only once or twice in an individual’s life, rather than each year—has now undergone two phase 1 clinical trials and is expected to move toward a human challenge trial.

Since COVID-19, like influenza, will probably remain within the human population, Dr. García-Sastre says there may be a need to develop a universal COVID vaccine as well.

The new NIAID contract calls for funding of $6 million per year over seven years, but Dr. García-Sastre expects there will be room for additional funding. “The last contract did not have a specific amount of money for COVID-19 because there was no COVID-19 at the time,” he says, so when the pandemic started the government provided extra funding to study and find treatments for the new disease.

In fact, Mount Sinai’s research in influenza allowed the team to respond quickly to COVID-19. “Through this initiative we were able to develop and respond with diagnostics, treatments, and a vaccine,” Dr. García-Sastre says. “We were able to screen compounds that had potential for treatments and by testing COVID-19 proteins we identified targets and inhibitors of these targets.”

Work led by Dr. Palese, in collaboration with the University of Texas at Austin, produced a low-cost COVID-19 vaccine that is currently being tested in humans in Vietnam and Thailand, with clinical trials expected to begin in Brazil.

The team has also identified a promising small-molecule drug, plitidepsin, which appears to be particularly effective in stopping the replication of SARS-CoV-2, the virus that causes COVID-19. Clinical trials of plitidepsin are about to start in the United Kingdom, and the Spanish drug maker, PharmaMar, is negotiating with the U.S. Food and Drug Administration to begin clinical trials in this country as well.

While the new NIAID contract calls for Mount Sinai’s team to take a proactive response to future pandemics, they will also continue to focus on influenza, which remains a major international health concern. Influenza pandemics arise periodically, and according to the World Health Organization, the seasonal viruses infect as many as one billion individuals a year and lead to 650,000 deaths. There is much more to discover about how the human body responds to influenza, says Dr. García-Sastre, and the NIAID contract will support that important work.

Mount Sinai Honors Front-Line Heath Care Workers in a Unique Crystal Virtual Tribute

May 18, 2021 | Featured

Rodrigo Saval, the Mount Sinai Health System’s first inpatient, center, became Mount Sinai West’s 500th COVID-19 discharge patient.

The Mount Sinai Health System’s annual Crystal Party—a festive fundraiser held each year under a tent large enough to accommodate more than 1,000 attendees in the Central Park Conservatory Garden—was replaced this year by a moving 50-minute video called the Crystal Virtual Tribute. Streamed to hundreds of viewers at 7 pm on Thursday, May 6, the video honored Mount Sinai’s front-line health care workers, scientists, and students who helped save thousands of lives during the COVID-19 pandemic. Many of the participants provided first-hand accounts of the fear and bravery they encountered during the dark, early days of the pandemic last spring and showed how the Mount Sinai Health System came together to beat back an unknown pathogen.

Kenneth L. Davis, MD

“It has been more than 400 days since the world as we knew it changed completely,” said Kenneth L. Davis, MD, President and Chief Executive Officer of the Mount Sinai Health System, in the Crystal Tribute’s opening remarks. “Nurses went beyond the call of duty, taking on extra shifts and overtime. Doctors overcame unprecedented challenges, doubling up patients in rooms and fighting to secure enough ventilators to keep the severely ill alive. Scientists and physicians worked tirelessly to discover the very best treatments. And many of you made generous donations to make sure our staff had the PPE (personal protective equipment) and housing we needed to save lives and to facilitate our science,” Dr. Davis said.

“Day in and day out through the terrifying early weeks and the heartbreaking months that followed, through the depths of the pandemic and still to this day, our staff dealt with unspeakable tragedy. Our clinicians made some of the biggest breakthroughs in how to improve patient outcomes and treat the virus. And it was Mount Sinai virologists who developed the nation’s first antibody test. These men and women on the front lines not only saved lives; they saved the city of New York.”

Nurse Manager Jamie Ruhmshottel, BSN, RN-BC, at The Mount Sinai Hospital (MSH), recalled, “There was an angel looking out for me making sure I didn’t get sick and I didn’t run out of fuel and kept going to serve my purpose.”

Jamie Ruhmshottel, BSN, RN-BC, left, with a colleague at The Mount Sinai Hospital

With so many patients on ventilators and families unable to accompany them into the hospital, communication was challenging. Valerie Burgos-Kneeland, DNP, RN, Intensive Care Unit, MSH, said she was determined to give patients the individual respect they deserved. She asked the hospital’s social workers to find out from the patients’ families what the patients liked to do so the staff caring for them would know, “They have lives and families out there who they’re looking to give back to. And they have things they want to do in their life. They’re not done yet.”

The Critical Care Unit at Mount Sinai Queens was filled with so many COVID-19 patients requiring oxygen that it ran out of space and began treating patients in hallways and closed rooms, which would have been unthinkable under different circumstances. Among those requiring intubation was one of their own, Chief Physician Assistant Jimmy Lee, PA, who had been an indispensable member of the hospital’s Critical Care team.

Ugo Ezenkwele, MD, MPH, Chief of Emergency Medicine, Mount Sinai Queens, said the staff understood they could become as sick as their colleague Mr. Lee, but they also knew they had to keep going. “We sort of felt like this was a defining moment. You saw that grief. You saw that angst. You saw that uncertainty.”

Ugo Ezenkwele, MD, left, and Jimmy Lee, PA

But Mr. Lee rallied, and was able to return to the work he loves. “When we talk about Mount Sinai Queens, it is a story of people who potentially could be forgotten,” Dr. Ezenkwele added. “We are immigrants. We are first-generation. We are second-generation. We are essential workers, children of essential workers, and we are children of people who work hard. And so that’s the heart. We are the community we serve.”

Scott Lorin, MD, MBA, President and Chief Operating Officer, Mount Sinai Brooklyn, said his hospital served some of the hardest-hit communities in the city. The hospital’s first COVID-19 patient arrived on March 9, 2020. “By March 16, we were doubling our cases of COVID-19 every two to three days,” he said. Two weeks later, 220 of the hospital’s 260 patients had COVID-19. “Almost 50 percent of our patients in the hospital required oxygen. It was a proverbial war zone and no one had ever trained for that.”

Scott Lorin, MD, MBA

Making matters more challenging was the fact that Dr. Lorin and the hospital’s management team developed COVID-19 during the week of March 23. That is when the Health System stepped in to help Mount Sinai Brooklyn and deployed 200 nurses, physicians, and additional staff from its seven other hospitals.

David L. Reich, MD, President of The Mount Sinai Hospital and Mount Sinai Queens, said, “We came of age as a Health System during COVID-19. Our ability to move patients from hospital to hospital, to move supplies and to consider everything related to COVID care as a continuous whole, rather than as discrete, individual campuses—that made a huge difference. The coordination that was done at the system level was one of the keys to our success.”

Richard A. Friedman and James S. Tisch, Co-Chairmen of the Mount Sinai Health System’s Boards of Trustees, led an effort that raised $100 million for COVID-19 response and research.

“One of the top priorities was supporting the front-line workers,” Mr. Tisch said. “Everybody had enormous empathy and respect for them. Trustees just wanted to know what they could do to help out.”

Mr. Friedman said, “This wasn’t even a case of, ‘Well, do I give? Do I not give?’ This was, ‘How much can I give?’”

Nurses at Mount Sinai Queens created a rock garden of hope during the height of the pandemic.

The funding helped support Mount Sinai’s scientific work. “I immediately resourced the money to our scientists who were doing groundbreaking research that ultimately saved lives,” said 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.

One of the beneficiaries of the funding was the laboratory of Florian Krammer, PhD, Mount Sinai Professor in Vaccinology, which was the first in the United States to create a test to determine whether an individual had antibodies to SARS-CoV-2, the virus that causes COVID-19.

Miriam Merad, MD, PhD, Director of the Precision Immunology Institute at Icahn Mount Sinai, was among the physician-scientists on the front lines. Dr. Merad organized teams of students and researchers to collect and analyze patients’ blood samples in order to find treatments for COVID-19.

The steps that faculty, staff, and students took to serve patients and find cures during such a dark time marked a pivotal moment in the history of Mount Sinai.

“The miracles that happened at Mount Sinai were made possible by the culture of this special place,” said Dr. Davis. “From our faculty to our administration, from our labs to our exam rooms, everything is centered on collaborating to provide the best possible care. And that commitment put Mount Sinai at the forefront of the pandemic response.”

The experience, he said, made the Mount Sinai community stronger than ever. “While we may not be together in Central Park tonight,” Dr. Davis added, “I know we’ll gather again soon under the same tent. We’ll overcome this pandemic and we’ll do it together. And I can’t wait to see you all next year in person.”

Watch the Crystal Virtual Tribute

Meet some of those at Mount Sinai who confronted the COVID-19 pandemic

More Voices From the Pandemic: Reflections on Darkness, Healing, Gratitude, and Hope in Virtual Crystal Tribute

May 17, 2021 | Featured

The Mount Sinai Health System’s annual Crystal Party fundraiser saluted the outstanding work of its clinicians and scientists, and staff and students, who heroically confronted the COVID-19 pandemic. A tribute video captured many poignant first-person accounts from several different perspectives, including those of grateful patients who received care at Mount Sinai. Here are some of their reflections. See the entire video here.

Jeremy Boal, MD, Executive Vice President, Chief Clinical Officer, Mount Sinai Health System; and President of Mount Sinai Beth Israel and Downtown

“We couldn’t be in denial. We couldn’t say, ‘Ah, it’s not going to be that bad. We’ll just get through it doing what we normally do.’ We actually had to grapple with this idea that in order for us to get through this, to help our city through this, we were going to have to behave in ways we had never behaved before.”

Vicki LoPachin, MD, MBA, Senior Vice President, Chief Medical Officer, Mount Sinai Health System

“What is the right equipment that our staff need? What is the right protective equipment? How do you wear it? How long can you wear it? What are the right treatment protocols? We had to pull together the great experts across our Health System and great clinical minds, and then marry that with what we were seeing clinically with the patients in New York.”

Judith A. Aberg, MD, the Dr. George Baehr Professor of Clinical Medicine and Chief of the Division of Infectious Diseases

“Within a period of even a week, we were opening up clinical trials, looking at potent anti-inflammatories and antivirals, and by the Fall, we had transfused convalescent plasma to more than 1,400 individuals.”

James C. Tsai, MD, President, New York Eye and Ear Infirmary of Mount Sinai

“New York Eye and Ear played a pivotal role because we were able to be a resource to the other hospitals. Hundreds of our dedicated physicians, nurses, and other staff were redeployed to other hospitals in the Mount Sinai Health System.”

Rohini Bahethi, MD, who was a third-year medical student in 2020 when she served as a leader of a vast COVID-19 volunteer workforce of medical and graduate students

“We had over 530 people. And then, at the end of a three-month period, we had over 30,000 hours logged by students, which is so incredible.”

Rev. Amy Strano, MDiv, Director of Spiritual Care and Education

“The pandemic has been a struggle for all of humanity and for every single human being. And how do we make sense of that? How do we keep going day to day?

Lynne D. Richardson, MD, Co-Director, Institute for Health Equity Research

“COVID has ripped off the band-aid and shown all of us who gets sick and who dies in America when the pandemic hit.”

Carol R. Horowitz, MD, MPH, Dean for Gender Equity, and Director, Institute for Health Equity Research

“People aren’t sick because they didn’t try hard enough, or they didn’t behave well enough. People are sicker because they live in a place or are treated in a way that it’s much harder to stay healthy.”

Nitza Rochez, avid marathon runner who, a month after being diagnosed with COVID-19, started to experience severe headaches, dizziness, and heaviness of her limbs, severely impairing her mobility

“Before COVID, I was actually in one of the best spots of my adult life. I ran marathons. I was at my physically fittest and strongest. “[After COVID], my family had to take care of me because I was so ill. And, initially, the connection was not made that it was post-COVID. I just kept getting told that it was in my head as I was getting sicker and sicker. Getting dismissed, it’s crushing. It really is, because you really do feel hopeless. “Once I started at Mount Sinai [Center for Post-COVID Care], I was given steroids, I felt a difference. Physical therapy. I was advised to go on an anti-inflammatory diet. I was given care and guidance.”

Rodrigo Saval, the Mount Sinai Health System’s first inpatient, who spent 54 days at Mount Sinai West; when he was released he was the hospital’s 500th COVID-19 discharge

“I think that what I would tell people is to never lose hope. No matter how bad it is, it’s going to get better. There’s light after the tunnel. And it was quite a tunnel. “2021 is a new beginning for me. I’m so thankful to be alive, to be able to be home. And so thankful to all the staff, doctors, and nurses at Mount Sinai West.”

Watch the Crystal Virtual Tribute

After Her New Daughter Spends Two Months in the ICU, Mom Thanks the Compassionate and Caring Team at Mount Sinai West

May 14, 2021 | Featured, Patient Stories, Stories of Excellence

Allyson Bragg with her daughter, Aayla, who was in the Neonatal Intensive Care Unit at Mount Sinai West for more than two months.

Allyson Bragg lives in Edison, New Jersey, a 45-minute drive from Mount Sinai West under the best of conditions. But after meeting Robin Brown, MD, an obstetrician and gynecologist at Mount Sinai West, she had no hesitation in driving to New York City so that Dr. Brown could oversee her pregnancy.

Allyson needed someone special. She had suffered numerous miscarriages, and was referred to Dr. Brown by Martin Keltz, MD, a reproductive endocrinologist, who said Dr. Brown was an expert in high-risk pregnancies. “He was so right. She is incredible; I love her.”

Although Allyson’s pregnancy was uneventful, her daughter Aayla was born prematurely at 28 weeks. Weighing 1 pound and 4 ounces, Aayla was in the Neonatal Intensive Care Unit at Mount Sinai West for more than two months.

Allyson was determined to be with her daughter every day, but she found the commute and expenses of gas and tolls challenging. That all changed when Allie Rubin, LCSW, secured a room for Allyson at the Ronald Mc Donald House located in Manhattan’s Upper East Side. Allyson stayed there for 55 days, allowing her to have unlimited time with Aayla, worry free. “I am so grateful to Allie. Despite the circumstances, it was a wonderful experience,” she says.

Allyson is also appreciative of the entire nursing staff for their care. She has special praise for Glen Marie Bona Greszta, RN. “Glenn was amazing.” She was the first one on Aayla’s care in the NICU after she was born. Glen shared knowledge about premature babies and, by going above and beyond, assured Allyson that Aayla was in good hands.

“I was thrilled that Glen was the nurse who put Aayla in her car seat when she was able to leave the NICU, so she was the first and last person to care for my rainbow baby,” she says. “Nurse Glen sets the standard for nursing care! I’m also grateful for nurses Rose Husbands, RN, and Yolanda Dela Cruz, RN; they treated my daughter like she was their own.”