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Scholar-Athletes Learn About Health Care Careers at Inaugural NYC-SWAG Summit

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

Scholar-athletes learned about careers in health care, medicine, and science—and learned that they might have exactly the right attributes to succeed—at the inaugural NYC-SWAG (Scholar-Athletes With Academic Goals) Summit. About 120 participants attended the event, held in June in Davis Auditorium, including students from middle school to college, parents, teachers, coaches, and medical professionals who were once student-athletes themselves.

From left: Reginald W. Miller, DVM, DACALM, Dean for Research Operations and Infrastructure, Icahn School of Medicine at Mount Sinai; Hannah Valantine, MD, Chief Officer for Scientific Workforce Diversity, National Institutes of Health; Brian Hainline, MD, Chief Medical Officer, National Collegiate Athletic Association; Norma Poll-Hunter, PhD, Senior Director, Human Capital Initiatives, Association of American Medical Colleges; and Gary C. Butts, MD, Dean for Diversity Programs, Policy and Community Affairs, Icahn School of Medicine at Mount Sinai.

In planning the Summit, “the conversation started around the severe lack of African American and Latino males in science and medicine, and expanded into a conversation around the larger student body of athletes,” said Reginald W. Miller, DVM, DACLAM, Dean for Research Operations and Infrastructure, Icahn School of Medicine at Mount Sinai. The event was hosted by the School of Medicine’s Diversity in Biomedical Research Council in partnership with the National Institutes of Health, the Association of American Medical Colleges, and the National Collegiate Athletic Association.

Young people who participate in athletics are developing important habits of mind, said the keynote speaker, Hannah Valantine, MD, Chief Officer for Scientific Workforce Diversity, National Institutes of Health. “Confidence, self-discipline, time management: these are all things that are critically important to be successful as a researcher and a scientist, and you already have it,” she told the attendees.

Speakers also included Brian Hainline, MD, Chief Medical Officer, National Collegiate Athletic Association; and Norma Poll- Hunter, PhD, Senior Director, Human Capital Initiatives, Association of American Medical Colleges. A panel of premed and medical students who had competed in swimming, rowing, football, and basketball shared practical tips: don’t neglect your studies; network; schedule time for plenty of sleep; and seek an internship in medicine or research. They said medical school might actually be easier than juggling school and sports.

The panel was led by Valerie Parkas, MD, Senior Associate Dean for Recruitment and Admissions, Icahn School of Medicine at Mount Sinai. Dr. Parkas said that she herself competed as a gymnast in college and that athletes often have attributes that allow them to be successful professionals in all spheres, but particularly in STEM careers and in medicine. “We are looking for young people who are hardworking, who are motivated, who have grit, who are team players, who are leaders,” Dr. Parkas said. “And those are young people who have been athletes their whole lives.”

Alvin Alonso, a student at Dr. Richard Izquierdo Health and Science Charter School in the Bronx, said the Summit gave him a lot of motivation. “It brought my hopes up,” he said. “It told me that anything is possible if you just put your mind to it.”

View an interview about the Summit on the ABC program "Here and Now."

Valerie Parkas, MD, Senior Associate Dean for Recruitment and Admissions, Icahn School of Medicine at Mount Sinai, led a panel of medical and premed students who are former athletes, from left: Femi Oyewole and David Octeau, Icahn School of Medicine at Mount Sinai; Showly Nicholson, Harvard Medical School; and Enna Selmanovic, University of Cincinnati.

Showly Nicholoson, a Harvard medical school student who played basketball at Phillips Exeter Academy, enjoyed lunch with young scholar-athletes.

About 120 people, including scholar-athletes from middle school to college, attended the NYC-SWAG Summit at Davis Auditorium.

Spiritual Health Symposium Is Centered on Compassion

Updated on Jun 30, 2022 | Community, Featured

Roshi Joan Halifax, right, with Deborah Marin, MD, Director, Center for Spirituality and Health, Icahn School of Medicine at Mount Sinai; and the Reverend David Fleenor, STM, BCC, Director of Education, Center for Spirituality and Health.

Show compassion for patients, for co-workers, and most important, for yourself. That was the central message of the recent Spiritual Health Symposium, sponsored by the Mount Sinai Center for Spirituality and Health and the Department of Nursing. About 125 faculty, staff, and students attended the event in Goldwurm Auditorium, receiving a detailed road map to cultivating compassion in the practice of health care.

A keynote speaker of the event was Roshi Joan Halifax, PhD, founder of the Upaya Institute and Zen Center in Santa Fe, New Mexico. Roshi Halifax— whose title means she is the spiritual leader of a community of Buddhist monks—consults with health systems around the world on compassionate care, but she began her life as a “good Christian girl” in Savannah, Georgia. Her grandmother was a trusted figure in the community who cared for sick neighbors and helped prepare the dead for burial. Roshi Halifax said that listening to her grandmother’s stories taught her three things: that death is normal, that death is a mystery, and that caring for people who are profoundly ill “is sacred work.”

Instructing Medical Students on the Spiritual Side of Patient Care

Many patients would like physicians to ask about their religious and spiritual beliefs, but most physicians do not feel comfortable doing that. To address this gap, the Icahn School of Medicine at Mount Sinai has developed an innovative curriculum described in a recent paper, “Teaching Third-Year Medical Students to Address Patients’ Spiritual Needs in the Surgery/Anesthesiology Clerkship,” in MedEdPortal, The Journal of Teaching and Learning Resources.

“We want physicians, who are the leads of most teams in health care, to pay attention to patients’ religious and spiritual needs in the context of their larger cultural needs,“ says the Reverend David Fleenor, STM, BCC, an author of the paper and Director of Education, Center for Spirituality and Health. Most medical schools provide some spiritual education, but the Icahn School of Medicine is unique in tying it to the clerkship in surgery. Rev. Fleenor teaches the session with a transplant surgeon, Susan Lerner, MD, Associate Professor of Surgery, and Medical Education.

Third-year students participate in a one hour session, learning how to describe the role of a chaplain, how and when to contact one, and how to take a patient’s spiritual history along with the general medical history. Of the 165 students who participated in 2017, 120 provided feedback, which was reported in the study published in December 2018. In short-term responses, 82 percent rated the session above average or excellent, and 72 percent said it was very relevant to patient care. The goal is to prepare physicians to handle spiritual and religious challenges, such as a patient who insists on wearing a special amulet during surgery, or resists a procedure on religious grounds, or is questioning their life’s purpose. “This is the right thing to do,” Rev. Fleenor says, “and it can make things a lot easier in the long run for the hospital and for the patient.”

Compassion is essential in health care, Roshi Halifax said, and instead of leading to “compassion fatigue,” it generally gives providers a sense of well-being and purpose. But still, they are at risk of falling into the “shadow” side of altruism and empathy—neglecting to take care of themselves, or empathizing so strongly that they become distressed and ineffective. To help strike a balance in compassion, Roshi Halifax has developed a process called GRACE to use in challenging situations, or in day-to-day patient care. She explained: The “G” of grace is gathering your attention, pausing for a moment. The “R” is recalling your intention, generally to alleviate suffering. The “A” of grace is attuning to yourself, assessing your physical and emotional state and how it may be affecting your interaction with the patient. The “C” is considering what will serve the patient best, and trying to do it. And the “E” is ending the process, perhaps with a thank you or an expression of appreciation.

The other keynote speaker was Shane Sinclair, PhD, Director of the Compassion Research Lab, University of Calgary in Canada, who is a leader in the study of compassion in health care. “Compassion is like empathy on steroids,” Dr. Sinclair said. “It not only requires action but it extends beyond individuals we can relate to, or we feel are worthy of our care. It targets those we may not easily relate to: the disenfranchised, the homeless, the vulnerable, our enemies, and even to the proverbial ‘difficult patient.’”

Panelists included members of the departments of Nursing, Psychiatry, and Spiritual Care and Education, and leaders of initiatives to improve well-being, such as the Employee Assistance Program, Mount Sinai Fit, and Mount Sinai Calm. “The single most important thing that we can do is listen to the people in our lives and in our work space,” said panelist Jane Maksoud, RN, MPA, Chief Human Resources Officer and Senior Vice President of Human Resources and Labor Relations, Mount Sinai Health System. “If you are ready to listen, without ego, to what the other person has to say, you will make tremendous strides in personal and professional growth and interpersonal connection.”

A panel on well-being initiatives, from left: Dan Hughes, PhD, Director, Employee Assistance Program; Maggie Keough, M.Ed., BCC, Chaplain and Director of Chi Time; Jane Maksoud, RN, MPA, Chief Human Resources Officer and Senior Vice President of Human Resources and Labor Relations; Rajvee Vora, MD, Vice Chair of Psychiatry; Frances Cartwright, PhD, RN-BC, Chief Nursing Officer; Jonathan Ripp, MD, MPH, Senior Associate Dean for Well-Being and Resilience; with a moderator, the Reverend David Fleenor, STM, BCC, Director of Education, Center for Spirituality and Health.

Roshi Joan Halifax, a keynote speaker, is the spiritual leader of the Upaya Institute and Zen Center in Santa Fe, New Mexico.

Panelists on compassion and the patient experience, from left: Lindsay Condrat, RN, MSN, Associate Director of Nursing; Rocky Walker, M.Div, Chaplain, The Mount Sinai Hospital; and MaKaya L. Saulsberry, MPH, Director, Patient Experience, The Mount Sinai Hospital.

Shane Sinclair, PhD, a keynote speaker, is Associate Professor, Faculty of Nursing, and Director, Compassion Research Lab, University of Calgary.

Organ Transplant Team Offers “HOPE” to Patients

Updated on Jun 30, 2022 | Featured, Patient Stories, Transplant

Jose Velez, seated, with, from left, transplant team members Sander S. Florman, MD; Shirish S. Huprikar, MD, Chief Medical Offi cer, The Mount Sinai Hospital; Vikram Wadhera, MBBS, Assistant Professor of Surgery (Kidney/Pancreas Transplantation); Brandy Haydel, Clinical Research Program Director; and Meenakshi M. Rana, MD, Assistant Professor of Medicine (Infectious Diseases).

In June, Jose Velez became the 50th person at the Mount Sinai Health System’s Recanati/Miller Transplantation Institute to receive a transplant under the HIV Organ Policy Equity (HOPE) Act, which allows organs from HIV-positive donors to be transplanted into HIV-positive recipients with end-stage disease, thus increasing the organ donor pool. Prior to the HOPE Act, which went into effect in late 2015, all patients—those with and without HIV—were required to use organs from HIV-uninfected donors.

During the nine years that Mr. Velez waited for a kidney transplant, he was notified four times that a kidney might be available only to be told that it had gone to someone else on the waiting list. “I would tell anyone who is eligible to be in the HOPE program that they should do it,” he says.

Before surgery, he was dependent on dialysis several times a week and could not travel freely or participate in activities that conflicted with such a constricted schedule. Now Mr. Velez’s plans include buying season tickets to the opera and traveling to Abu Dhabi, London, and Paris. “It’s a whole new world, a very different life than I was living for nine years,” he says. “I’m open to so many things now.” He credits Mount Sinai for providing a “safe, secure, and caring” environment. “Sometimes they make you feel as though you’re their only patient,” he says.

Mount Sinai was the first hospital in New York State and the second in the nation to perform a HOPE transplant in 2016. Today, Mount Sinai performs more of these transplants than any other U.S. hospital.

“Thanks to tremendous advances in antiviral therapies, patients with HIV now live long lives and may suffer from end-stage liver and kidney diseases that can be treated by transplantation,” says Sander S. Florman, MD, Director of the Recanati/Miller Transplantation Institute at The Mount Sinai Hospital. “Carefully selected people with HIV can have comparable outcomes with transplantation as people without HIV and deserve an equitable opportunity to get a transplant. This has increased the availability of organs for these patients, and has allowed people with HIV to be donors and offer the gift of life to others.”

Mount Sinai Oncologist Cardinale Smith, MD, PhD, Receives Sojourns® Scholar Leadership Program Grant

Updated on Jun 30, 2022 | Featured

Cardinale Smith, MD, PhD, Associate Professor, Medicine (Hematology and Medical Oncology); Associate Professor, Geriatrics and Palliative Medicine, received a two-year grant through the Cambia Health Foundation’s Sojourns® Scholar Leadership Program in 2018. The program provides emerging leaders in palliative care with funding for an innovative project in the field. For her project, Dr. Smith is studying the role of implicit bias on the outcomes of minority patients with advanced cancer.

To learn more about Dr. Smith, listen to her Road to Resilience episode on The Art of Self-Care.

Mount Sinai Health System and Icahn School of Medicine Celebrate Honorees on Crain’s 2019 “Notable Women in Healthcare”

Updated on Jun 30, 2022 | Featured, MSBI

The Mount Sinai Health System—New York City’s largest integrated delivery system, encompassing eight hospitals, a leading medical school, and a vast network of ambulatory practices throughout the greater New York region—celebrated six female honorees recognized in Crain’s 2019 “Notable Women in Healthcare.” The list, in its second year, recognizes leaders in “an industry uniquely shaped by women.”

Read the press release

Advanced Coronary Bypass Performed at Mount Sinai St. Luke’s

Updated on Jun 30, 2022 | Featured

John D. Puskas, MD, left, with Samuel “Skip” Vichness, who in May received the totally endoscopic coronary arterial bypass (TECAB).

Mount Sinai Heart has become one of the few centers in the world offering an innovative heart bypass procedure without major incisions or cutting through the breastbone. The procedure, known as totally endoscopic coronary arterial bypass surgery (TECAB), is performed using only micro-incisions and offers eligible patients a much quicker recovery with less pain, scarring, and risk of infection.

Two TECAB procedures were performed in May at Mount Sinai St. Luke’s by John D. Puskas, MD, Chair of Cardiovascular Surgery at Mount Sinai St. Luke’s, Mount Sinai West, and Mount Sinai Beth Israel, and Director of Surgical Coronary Revascularization, Mount Sinai Health System, with Gianluca Torregrossa, MD, Associate Director of Robotic Heart Surgery, Mount Sinai St. Luke’s.

“This is a very technically demanding procedure, with few cardiac surgeons having the expertise or experience to perform it. Our cardiac team is equipped to handle such intricate, advanced procedures, and our modernized facility is outfitted with a state-of-the-art surgical robot to assist them,” says Arthur Gianelli, President of Mount Sinai St. Luke’s. “By offering this innovative bypass procedure, our team leaps ahead in coronary artery bypass grafting surgery in New York and the Northeast.”

Each of the TECAB surgeries—a single bypass and a double bypass—was performed through four fingertip-size “keyhole” incisions. The surgeons placed robotic instruments through the micro-incisions to harvest the mammary artery. Then, they used the Flex-A®, a highly specialized device made by Aesculap Inc., to connect the mammary artery to the coronary artery of the heart with a high degree of precision. In a traditional bypass procedure, the surgeon makes a large incision, up to 12 inches long, spreads open the patient’s chest, and sews the arteries together by hand.

“In a traditional coronary bypass, there is a lot of manipulation inside the chest, and a prolonged recovery time,” Dr. Puskas says. “Typically, patients are in the hospital for a week or so after surgery, and it may be two to three months before they can return to truly normal activities.” In contrast, after the closed-chest TECAB procedure, patients can go home in one to three days, and return to normal activities in a few more days. “This is a much less invasive way to achieve an arterial bypass, which is the longest lasting, most life-giving bypass that we can provide,” says Dr. Puskas, a leader in robotic coronary revascularization.

The best candidates for TECAB are bypass patients with only one or two blockages on the left side of the heart who want to avoid a traditional operation. Surgeons cannot perform TECAB on patients who have had previous heart surgery or radiation therapy to the chest.

The number of surgeons worldwide who now perform TECAB is “in the single digits,” Dr. Puskas says. “And that is unfortunate, because this procedure has the potential to take coronary surgery to an entirely new level.” As an example, he cited Samuel “Skip” Vichness, one of the two patients who underwent the TECAB procedure in May. Before the surgery, Mr. Vichness, 71, had severe angina and could barely walk across the room. One month later, “He is deliriously happy with how he is doing. He is back on the golf course and has resumed all full activities. He is back to work,” Dr. Puskas says.

Dr. Puskas sees a future in which TECAB might become a common therapy for blocked arteries, comparing its development with that of early coronary artery bypass grafting (CABG). “Thirty years ago, the use of the internal mammary artery graft as a bypass conduit was thought to be too difficult,” he says, “and there were many senior, famous surgeons who said, ‘This will never become commonplace.’” However, because of advances in technology and training, CABG with arterial conduits has become the standard of care for many patients. Dr. Puskas says, “I would like to think that we will make similar progress, perhaps faster progress, with the TECAB minimally invasive robotic procedure.”

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