This past year, our community has experienced a number of tragedies that have led us to reflect on the adequacy of well-being resources and mental health support for our trainees. We are forming a Dean’s Task Force to address these issues and have attached the Task Force Charter.
The groups that will be represented on this Task Force include:
- Medical School Students
- Graduate School Students
- Postdoctoral Fellows
- House staff
- Department of Psychiatry
- Department of Social Work Services
- Medical School, Graduate School, and GME Leadership
- The Center for Multi-Cultural and Community Affairs/Office of Diversity and Inclusion
Members of the Task Force have already been contacted and we plan to schedule our first meeting in the coming weeks.
After one or two initial meetings of the Task Force, we expect to break up into smaller working groups and tackle three major areas of interest: access to mental health resources, well-being resources (including coping and resilience tools), and affecting change in the culture of academic achievement and performance. Each working group will allow a larger number of trainees to participate in this process.
Once the working groups have completed their work, the Task Force will come together to review their conclusions and turn them into one comprehensive proposal for the Dean’s office by the late fall, with the hope of beginning to implement interventions in early 2017.
We cannot overstate the importance of this undertaking. We have a unique opportunity to affect major change in medical education and set a standard for other schools to follow.
Thank you for your willingness to support this process.
Dennis S. Charney, MD
Anne and Joel Ehrenkranz Dean of the Icahn School of Medicine at Mount Sinai
President for Academic Affairs, Mount Sinai Health System
David Muller, MD, FACP
Marietta and Charles C. Morchand Chair in Medical Education
Dean of Medical Education
Icahn School of Medicine at Mount Sinai
Marta Filizola, PhD
Dean, Graduate School of Biomedical Sciences
Professor, Department of Pharmacological Sciences
Professor, Department of Neuroscience
Icahn School of Medicine at Mount Sinai
I. Michael Leitman, MD, FACS
Senior Associate Dean for Graduate Medical Education
ACGME Designated Institutional Official
Icahn School of Medicine at Mount Sinai
Department of Medical Education
Professor of Surgery and Medical Education