Before a standing-room-only audience of wellwishers, 140 medical students of the Icahn School of Medicine at Mount Sinai Class of 2023 received symbolic white coats during a rousing ceremony held Tuesday, September 17, in Stern Auditorium. Always a jubilant affair for the students and their families and friends, and for Mount Sinai Health System leadership, faculty, and alumni, this year’s event was marked by frequent applause as speakers brought special attention to key issues in medical education and health care.

After receiving their white coats, the aspiring physicians also recited a student oath they wrote— a set of principles to guide them. They committed to be innovative collaborators, to push medicine to new heights, and to courageously advocate for patients and their communities, among other ideals.

In attendance were Richard A. Friedman and James S. Tisch, Co-Chairmen of the Mount Sinai Health System Boards of Trustees. “The Trustees care deeply about you, our students,” said Mr. Friedman in welcoming remarks. “We want you to be able to learn without the anxiety of graduating with a financial burden that might severely limit your ability to pursue your dreams. So, earlier this year, the Boards of Trustees approved the Enhanced Scholarship Initiative that enables students with demonstrated need to graduate with no more than $75,000 of debt. This is a gift from the Trustees who have funded the Initiative.”

Dennis S. Charney, MD, Anne and Joel Ehrenkranz Dean of the Icahn School of Medicine at Mount Sinai, and President for Academic Affairs for the Mount Sinai Health System, spoke eloquently of gifts of a different sort. “It is important that you be thankful for all the gifts that are associated with becoming a physician and scientist,” he told the students. “It will enrich your personal life, enhance your professional sense of purpose, and most importantly, improve the lives of patients who place their trust in you.”

Among the gifts, he said, are the gifts of family, of gratitude, of giving and showing compassion to patients, of solving life’s greatest challenges, and of demonstrating strength, courage, and resilience while under duress. “Perhaps your ultimate gift,” he concluded, “is the chance to dream big.”

Kenneth L. Davis, MD, President and Chief Executive Officer of the Mount Sinai Health System, took the opportunity to urge the future physicians to uphold and advance the values that have defined Mount Sinai since its earliest days—values, he said, that are now being threatened.

“The federal government has released a rule that could deny permanent resident status to some immigrants if they accept government assistance, including Medicaid, food stamps, or housing assistance, all of which we know impacts a person’s health and well-being,” he began. “In accepting federal government assistance, these individuals and families risk being labeled as a ‘public charge,’ and under this rule, it would jeopardize their ability to remain in the United States.” As a result, Dr. Davis continued, immigrant and low-income families served by Mount Sinai are choosing to forgo health care to avoid possible deportation.

“How does that affect you, future physicians and researchers? This is what I want you to commit to when you leave this room: We must defend our ability to be health care providers for all. By accepting your white coat today, you are pledging to uphold our values and to fulfill Mount Sinai’s vision.”

Zara Cooper, MD, MSc, FACS, MSSM ’00, Kessler Director of the Center for Surgery and Public Health at Brigham and Women’s Hospital, gave a heartfelt keynote speech, which each year is dedicated to the late Hans Popper, MD, PhD, a world-renowned physician and academic leader who was President and Dean Emeritus of the Mount Sinai School of Medicine.

“It’s hard to describe the gratification of saving a patient’s life, helping bring a new life into the world, making a patient’s life longer or more enjoyable, or easing their transition to death,” she told the medical students. “You will do each of these things before you leave here. You will witness extraordinary things. You will experience the greatest joy and satisfaction that life can offer, and the deepest regret, shame, sadness, and self-doubt. But through it all, what will keep you centered, what will help you maintain your ethical compass, avoid burnout, maintain hope and optimism and joy in this work, is that you must always do what is best for the patient—always, always, always.”

The 56 members of the matriculating classes of PhD and MD/PhD students in the Graduate School of Biomedical Sciences at the Icahn School of Medicine at Mount Sinai received white lab coats during a special ceremony held Monday, September 9, in Goldwurm Auditorium.

“It is with great pride and joy that I welcome you,” Marta Filizola, PhD, Dean of the Graduate School, and the Sharon and Frederick Klingenstein/Nathan Kase, MD Professor of Pharmacological Sciences, and Professor of Neuroscience, told the students. “This ceremony serves as a symbolic induction to your professional PhD training in the Biomedical Sciences and Neuroscience programs, as well as to the MD/PhD Medical Scientist Training Program.” The Graduate School, which began the tradition in 2018, is the only institution in New York City, and one of a few in the nation, to honor its matriculating PhD classes in this manner.

Also receiving recognition were 43 PhD and MD/PhD students who have officially joined a lab and confirmed their PhD candidature by passing their thesis proposal exams. They were presented with honorary plaques.

The PhD students recited an oath to guide them through their training, and beyond. In part, they pledged to uphold the highest levels of integrity, professionalism, scholarship, and honor, and to conduct their research and professional endeavors with honesty and objectivity.

Eric J. Nestler, MD, PhD, Dean for Academic and Scientific Affairs, Director of The Friedman Brain Institute, and Nash Family Professor of Neuroscience, who was the event’s master of ceremonies, gave this advice to the students. “The most critical dimension of your graduate student career will be finding the right laboratory in which to do your dissertation research—and the most critical aspect of that choice will be the lab’s principal investigator, who will be your mentor,” he said. “I would argue that the lab principal investigator is more important to your future than the content of the lab’s work or the experimental approaches the lab utilizes. If it works as it should, your lab mentor will be one of your more significant relationships of your professional lives.”

When keynote speaker Francesca Cole, PhD, stepped to the podium, she almost immediately acknowledged her own mentor, Robert S. Krauss, PhD, Professor of Cell, Developmental and Regenerative Biology, and Oncological Sciences, at the Icahn School of Medicine at Mount Sinai, who was in attendance. Dr. Cole received a PhD in Biomedical Sciences in 2003 at Mount Sinai, followed by postgraduate training at Memorial Sloan Kettering Cancer Center, and today she is an Associate Professor of Epigenetics and Molecular Carcinogenesis at The University of Texas MD Anderson Cancer Center.

She outlined the struggles of a typical scientist. “We have to live with the knowledge that we could be wrong, that our approach may not work, that we may not be asking the right question. In short, doing research makes you feel stupid,” said Dr. Cole. “You must accept this. If you don’t feel that way, you aren’t working hard enough or pushing the boundaries of our knowledge enough.”

Dr. Cole also encouraged the students to select a mentor wisely and to support each other. “But this is my most important message to you,” she said. “It is abundantly clear that you all belong here. So, welcome to biomedical research, and let’s make beautiful science together.”

On Thursday, May 9, the Icahn School of Medicine at Mount Sinai celebrated its 50th Commencement with a ceremony at Lincoln Center’s David Geffen Hall. The School granted 157 degrees. Additionally, honorary degrees were granted to Commencement speakers, Scott Gottlieb, MD, and Curtis Martin. Dr. Gottlieb is the former Commissioner of the U.S. Food and Drug Administration. Mr. Martin, a National Football League Hall of Famer, has supported Mount Sinai’s efforts to develop a safe, non-addictive, non-opioid pain medication.

Joanna C. Jen, MD, PhD, and Bernard Cohen, MD

Joanna C. Jen, MD, PhD, a physician-scientist with a special interest in the genetic and physiological basis of neurological disorders affecting eye movement control, balance, and coordination, recently joined the Icahn School of Medicine at Mount Sinai as Chief of the Division of Neuro-otology and Neurogenetics in the Department of Neurology.

She was named the Dr. Morris B. Bender Professor of Neurology, and Professor of Neurosurgery, and Otolaryngology, and will build upon the groundbreaking work of her predecessors—the late Morris B. Bender, MD, a pioneer in the neurology of the ocular motor system and a former Chair of Neurology at Mount Sinai, and Bernard Cohen, MD. An internationally renowned scientist and clinician, Dr.  Cohen considerably advanced understanding of the functions of the vestibular system, helping to discover a mechanism in the brainstem that is an essential part of the neural basis for balance that aligns the body with gravity.

In one research project that began in the 1980s—which was recently documented in the Smithsonian Institution Online Virtual Archives Dr. Cohen was asked by NASA to test the neuro-optical response of primates when orbiting the Earth in microgravity. The Cosmos Primate Rotator Chair, which was built to specifications provided by Dr. Cohen and a Russian Academy of Medicine scientist, allowed the researchers to study eye movement responses in monkeys in an upright position and at various angles of tilt, before and after spaceflight. They demonstrated for the first time that exposure to microgravity had dramatically altered an essential reflex that is part of normal eye movements, both in humans and monkeys.

Dr. Cohen with the Cosmos Primate Rotator Chair.

The laboratory established by Dr. Cohen also developed the first effective treatment for mal de débarquement syndrome (MdDS), which has since treated more than 400 patients who have sensations of continuous rocking, swaying, and bobbing after cruises on the sea. Dr. Cohen, who served as the inaugural Dr. Morris B. Bender Professor of Neurology and continues his research as Professor Emeritus, recently provided generous funding for the first fellow in neuro-otology and for research on the pathophysiologic mechanisms underlying MdDS.

In her new role, Dr. Jen aims to create a comprehensive multidisciplinary clinical care and research program that spans the population health approach, from front-line evaluation and management of dizziness and imbalance, to precision medicine-based diagnosis and treatment for rare disorders of cerebellar maldevelopment and degeneration.