Dennis S. Charney, MD, delivered the State of the School address.
A year of great achievement in science and medicine was celebrated at the 2019 Convocation Ceremony, which marked the beginning of the academic year at the Icahn School of Medicine at Mount Sinai and featured the annual State of the School Address by 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. The event, held on Thursday, October 17, before a standing-room-only audience at Goldwurm Auditorium, also honored 10 renowned faculty members who have advanced the fields of neurosurgery, molecular pharmacology, oncology, bioinformatics, vaccinology, population health, cardiovascular clinical research, and gene and cell medicine.
In one of the School of Medicine’s chief accomplishments, Dr. Charney said, it received $393 million in National Institutes of Health funding in fiscal year 2019—a 13 percent increase over the prior year—ranking the school No. 12 in the nation. The Icahn School of Medicine also rose to No. 3 from No. 4 in research dollars per principal investigator, according to the Association of American Medical Colleges.
“We are by far the best-funded independent medical school and are competing very effectively with all the major universities,” Dr. Charney said. “But most important—our science is leading to breakthroughs that have the potential to help our patients.”
The matriculating class of medical students is a well-rounded and diverse group who came from some of the nation’s top universities and had a median grade point average of 3.82 (out of 4.0). “We have a great class of students, not only because of their metrics but because of their passion for social justice, for gender equity, and for science,” Dr. Charney said. “They want to do it all, and we are here to be their teachers and make sure that is possible.” To further support medical students, in April 2019 Mount Sinai announced the Enhanced Scholarship Initiative, which ensures that medical students with a demonstrated need will graduate with a maximum debt of $75,000. Mount Sinai remains the largest sponsor of graduate medical education in the nation, with 2,500 residents and clinical fellows. And it has added six accredited programs at Mount Sinai South Nassau, which joined the Health System in 2019.
The Graduate School of Biomedical Sciences was granted accreditation for a new Master of Health Administration program, which will launch in 2020, and it has expanded training in data science and entrepreneurship in response to requests from students. The school has an “outstanding” matriculating class of 44 PhD students, Dr. Charney said. “And 70 percent of the class are women, which is very encouraging, given that we want more women going into science and medicine.”
Among other high points:
Mount Sinai Innovation Partners (MSIP), which translates research findings into health care products and services, generated 209 patent applications and 60 new licenses and options for the use of research. MSIP helped create several spin-out companies, including HiberCell, Inc., which develops therapeutics focused on preventing cancer relapse, and RenalytixAI, PLC, which advances tools to identify patients at risk for fast-progressing kidney disease.
The Mount Sinai Doctors Faculty Practice had its most successful year, with annualized revenue of $1.1 billion in 2019, an increase of 7 percent over 2018. The practice is one of the largest in the nation, with 1.4 million ambulatory visits to The Mount Sinai Hospital campus in 2019. The number of phone calls to its Access Center rose to 4.4 million in 2019 from 3.65 million in 2018.
“The Best Employers for Diversity,” a list of 500 companies compiled by Forbes, ranked Mount Sinai No. 1 among health systems and hospitals in 2019, and No. 19 overall. In January 2019, Carol Horowitz, MD, MPH, was named Dean for Gender Equity in Science and Medicine—the first such dean in the nation. Dr. Horowitz is overseeing a range of initiatives in areas including compensation, recruitment and retention, gender bias, and mentorship. The School of Medicine in 2019 created the Change Now Initiative to promote health care and education that are free of racism and bias. And in October 2019, the Diversity Innovation Hub (DIH) was launched by a team led by Gary C. Butts, MD, Dean for Diversity Programs, Policy, and Community Affairs, Icahn School of Medicine at Mount Sinai. DIH intends to create fellowships in technology and entrepreneurship for Mount Sinai medical and graduate students and to work with partners such as MSIP, local community leaders, and start-ups to seek innovative solutions to disparities in health and health care.
Looking ahead, Mount Sinai is continuing to carry out the wide-ranging strategic plan developed in 2017, Dr. Charney said. In 2019, it created new institutes focusing on digital health, biomedical engineering, and transformative clinical trials. Mount Sinai is also planning a new building at 98th and Madison.
“We expect this to be an iconic building and a gateway to our campus,” Dr. Charney said. “It will allow an expansion of our faculty practice and enhance our initiatives in digital health, artificial intelligence, and biomedical engineering.” To fund this and other capital projects, Mount Sinai is working with the Boards of Trustees to raise $2 billion by 2024. Thirty-one percent of the goal has been achieved as of October 2019.
Mount Sinai’s “great track record of discovery” was saluted by James S. Tisch, who in spring 2019 became Co-Chairman of the Boards of Trustees with Richard A. Friedman. “Our recent achievements and research rankings are truly impressive, particularly for a standalone medical school that is not a part of a larger research university,” Mr. Tisch said.
Mount Sinai is a leading driver of innovation at a critical time, said Kenneth L. Davis, MD, President and Chief Executive Officer, Mount Sinai Health System, comparing the present day to the dawn of quantum physics in the early 20th century. Physicists of that time could never have predicted that their discoveries would lead to artificial intelligence and cellphones that can send a photo across the globe in milliseconds. “Today we are in the midst of another incredible revolution, but this time it is in biology. We are seeing changes at an exponential rate as our research is transforming modern medicine and our understanding of disease,” Dr. Davis said. “Our grandchildren may look back and wonder why people ever died of cancer or why they only lived to 80.” He urged leading physician-scientists—like Mount Sinai’s 10 newly endowed professors—to use their prestige and expertise to convince government policymakers of the opportunities that lie ahead.
Concluding his address, Dr. Charney said he was looking forward to working further with Mr. Tisch and Mr. Friedman, and he expressed sincere gratitude to Peter W. May, who stepped down as Chairman of the Mount Sinai Boards of Trustees in May 2019 after guiding the Health System through 17 years of enormous growth and change.
“Peter May enabled us to go from good to great—to be among the best medical schools and health systems in the world,” Dr. Charney said. “And we thank him for his inspirational leadership and wisdom.”
Front row, from left: Florian Krammer, PhD; Sundar Jagannath, MBBS; Fred R. Hirsch, MD, PhD; Lakshmi A. Devi, PhD; Joshua B. Bederson, MD; and Dennis S. Charney, MD. Back row, from left: James S. Tisch; Sarah E. Millar, PhD; Roxana Mehran, MD; Avi Ma’ayan, PhD; Daniel M. Labow, MD; and Nathalie Jette, MD, MSc.