Barbara Barnett, MD, Chief Medical Officer, Mount Sinai Beth Israel, center left, and David L. Reich, MD, center right, flanked by two strong allies of the transgender community, New York City Councilwoman Rosie Mendez and New York State Assemblyman Richard N. Gottfried.
Patients, caregivers, family, friends, and elected officials recently gathered to celebrate the one-year anniversary of the Center for Transgender Medicine and Surgery. “What is CTMS? CTMS is a reflection of the vision of the Mount Sinai Health System,” David L. Reich, MD, President and Chief Operating Officer, The Mount Sinai Hospital, said at the event, on Monday, April 10, at Mount Sinai Beth Israel. “We see ourselves as champions of social justice, and one aspect of social justice is providing the highest quality, seamless, coordinated, and culturally sensitive care to the transgender community.”
The outpatient location offers care that incorporates primary, transition, and behavioral-health services. The Center completed its first surgical procedure at Mount Sinai Beth Israel in March 2016, and has since performed more than 200 procedures, including vaginoplasty, phalloplasty, metoidioplasty, facial feminization, chest-wall reconstructions, hysterectomy, and orchiectomy. CTMS is the first such center in New York, and among the pioneers in the nation. Health care services are delivered in a welcoming and affirmative environment devoted to the wellbeing of transgender patients.
Mahogany Phillips with Leonie Taylor, RN, a Senior Nurse Manager at Mount Sinai Beth Israel.
“We’re all proud of what we have accomplished, and are enthusiastic about what the future holds for us,” Dr. Reich said. This summer, the Center will welcome its first fellows—one in transgender surgery and another in psychiatry—and an experienced reconstructive urologist, in further pursuit of Mount Sinai’s core missions of clinical care, education, and research.
Mahogany Phillips, who reunited with friends and caregivers at the event, says that while growing up, she felt like “just a regular girl” and had surgery at Mount Sinai in September 2016 and March 2017. “For me it was important to make me comfortable in my own body and to see myself, whole, in the mirror,” she says.