As Mount Sinai School of Medicine
The first official proposal to establish a medical school at Mount Sinai was made to the hospital's trustees in January 1958. The school contemplated a new kind of medical institution encompassing a medical school supported by a teaching hospital. It would include an undergraduate school representing allied health fields, a graduate school of biological sciences, and a graduate school of physical sciences. [5]
This philosophy was defined by Hans Popper, Horace Hodes, Alexander Gutman, Paul Klemperer, George Baehr, Gustave L. Levy, and Alfred Stern, among others. [6] Milton Steinbach was the school's first president. [7]
Classes at Mount Sinai School of Medicine began in 1968, and the school soon became known as one of the leading medical schools in the U.S., as the hospital gained recognition for its laboratories, advances in patient care and the discovery of diseases. [8] The City University of New York granted Mount Sinai's degrees. [6]
The school expanded programs and added a range of dedicated departments in the subsequent decades. The Edith J. Baerwald Professor of Community Medicine and Social Work (1969); [9] the first Department of Neoplastic Diseases in an American medical school (1973); [10] and the first Department of Geriatrics and Adult Development (1982). [11]
In the 1990s, it created the Cultural Diversity in Medicine Program focused on healthcare availability to diverse patient populations. [12] It was the second institution in the New York Metropolitan area to create an Academic Department of Emergency Medicine (1994), [13] it started the Institute for Gene Therapy and Molecular Medicine (1996), [14] and an Office of Multi-cultural and Community Affairs to add diversity to the demographic composition of the school (1998). [12] In collaboration with the Pew Charitable Trust, the Center for Children's Health and the Environment was formed to examine links between childhood illnesses and toxic pollutants (1999). [15] [16]
Mount Sinai's degrees were granted by City University of New York before 1999, when Mount Sinai changed university affiliations from City University to New York University but without merging its operations with the New York University School of Medicine. This affiliation change took place as part of the merger in 1998 of Mount Sinai and NYU medical centers to create the Mount Sinai–NYU Medical Center and Health System. [17] In 2003, the partnership between the two dissolved. [18] [19]
In 2007, Mount Sinai Medical Center's boards of trustees approved the termination of the academic affiliation between Mount Sinai and NYU and it was officially terminated in 2008. [20] In 2010, Mount Sinai was accredited by the Middle States Commission on Higher Education and became an independent degree-granting institution.
As Icahn School of Medicine
On November 14, 2012, it was announced that Mount Sinai School of Medicine would be renamed Icahn School of Medicine at Mount Sinai, following a US$200 million gift from New York businessman and philanthropist Carl Icahn. [21] [22]
Campus
The 18-story Icahn Institute provides 350,000 sf of laboratory, treatment, and education space for the School of Medicine. [23] The campus is located on Manhattan’s Upper East Side, between Fifth and Madison Avenues, stretching from East 98th Street to East 102nd Street.
Partnerships and affiliations
In 2015, Mount Sinai announced partnerships with The Children's Hospital of Philadelphia as well as National Jewish Health, the nation's leading institutes for pediatric and pulmonary care respectively, leading to the creation of the Mount Sinai Children’s Heart Center [24] and the Mount Sinai – National Jewish Health Respiratory Institute. [25]
COVID response
The first diagnosed COVID-19 case in New York City was by Mount Sinai emergency department's Dr. Angela Chen. [26]
In March 2020, Elmhurst Hospital Center, the public hospital that serves as a major training site for Mount Sinai students and residents, was the epicenter of New York City's initial COVID-19 surge, with Mount Sinai house staff and faculty serving as the city's first front-line workers treating patients infected with coronavirus. [27] Mount Sinai has since established itself at the forefront of research to understand and treat COVID-19, being named a lead site in a $470 million study to examine the long-term effects of COVID-19. [28]
Controversy
In April 2019, the Icahn School was named in a lawsuit filed against Mount Sinai Health System and several employees of the Icahn School's Arnhold Institute for Global Health. [29] The suit was filed by eight current and former employees for "age and sex discrimination as well as improper reporting to funding agencies, misallocation of funds, failing to obtain Institutional Review Board approval prior to conducting research in violation of Mount Sinai and federal guidelines, and failing properly to adhere to the guidelines of the Health Insurance Portability and Accountability Act or HIPAA." [30] The school denies the claims. More than 150 students at the Icahn School and more than 400 Icahn and Mount Sinai Health System faculty have signed letters, addressed to the Board of Trustees, calling on the system to investigate these allegations. [31] [32]
