Educational Opportunities

At the Icahn School of Medicine at Mount Sinai, we supplement the didactic and clinical education of residents, fellows, and faculty by providing exceptional learning activities.

Current offerings include orientation modules, simulated clinical examinations, retreats, seminars, and professional development. Some programs, like our Chief Resident Retreat, are limited to specific training levels. 

For Residents and Fellows

Standardized Patient Examination

Many of our incoming first- and second-year residents participate in simulated clinical encounters through the Morchand Center for Clinical Competence. These examinations use standardized patients to test the ability to recognize medical errors, prescribe responsibly, gather discharge information, and determine informed consent and advance directives. Many of our programs use this assessment to develop individualized resident learning plans.

Chief Resident Retreat

Our GME Office hosts a two-day offsite retreat for rising chief residents. The goal of this program is to prepare residents for the additional management responsibilities that come with being a chief resident. The retreat focuses on mastering conflict resolution, leadership development, and learning patient safety/quality improvement skills.

Annual Research Day

Each June, residents and fellows from the Mount Sinai Health System and our Consortium affiliates are invited to present research in oral and poster presentations. Prizes are awarded for the top presenters in several categories including Basic Science Research, Clinical Research, Quality Improvement/Patient Safety, Education Research, Wellness, and Clinical Vignettes/Case Reports. All presenters are invited to publish their work in our open-access GME periodical (see below).

12h Annual Graduate Medical Education Consortium Research Day (2021)

Journal of Scientific Innovation in Medicine

The Journal of Scientific Innovation in Medicine is an open-access, international, peer-reviewed journal in the area of transformative scientific developments that provide new concepts and paradigms in the treatment of human disease. The mission of this Journal is to advance the understanding of how to apply new technology, scientific discovery, and innovative solutions in order to expand the frontiers of medicine. The Editorial Board includes ISMMS residents, fellows and faculty and allows participants to develop an understanding of the process of developing scholarly materials.

The Journal welcomes manuscripts that present original research pertaining to therapeutic discovery from clinicians and scientists as they uncover new ways to treat diseases and illnesses. The Journal also welcomes submissions of original research related to the impact of scientific discovery on the health care system including costs, value, and applicability.

In addition, the Journal solicits original papers on scholarly attitudes toward clinical innovation, exploring topics such as health care technology assessment and the effect of new technology on society. We also welcome medical student, resident, and fellow papers, as well as accepted conference abstracts. We encourage trainees to publish their work, which will be subject to a constructive peer-review process.

GME Leadership Development Program

This 12-month Leadership Development Program is designed to provide residents and fellows with skills and tools to work more effectively in a variety of team settings and to increase self-awareness of leadership styles and impact. Master’s level training includes interviews, presentations, and discussions with a number of key physician leaders, among them senior executives of the Mount Sinai Health System, leading clinical faculty, and external/national experts.

Alpha Omega Alpha (AOA)
Residents, Fellows, and Faculty in ISMMS sponsored GME training programs are annually nominated for induction into Alpha Omega Alpha (AOA), the national medical honor society. To be eligible, residents and fellows must be actively enrolled in an ACGME-accredited residency or clinical fellowship training program and have already completed the PGY-1 year of postgraduate clinical training. Nominees are evaluated based upon demonstrated continued academic and professional achievement, including leadership, professionalism, service, teaching, research/scholarship, and humanism, along with a commitment to scholarly excellence and medical education.

Faculty AOA selection provides a means for recognizing and honoring those who have distinguished themselves in their professional careers, demonstrating continued academic and professional achievement, leadership, professionalism, service, teaching/mentorship, research, and a commitment to scholarly excellence and medical education.

A selection committee, led by Carrie L. Ernst, MD, AOA Councilor,  considers all nominees and a ceremony is held each spring to acknowledge those house staff and faculty selected for AOA induction.

Bioethics Education

Residents and fellows receive ongoing professional ethics training via seminars, case conferences, and team rounds conducted by the bioethics faculty at ISMMS.

Faculty Development

GME Educational Conference

This annual full-day educational conference for program directors and faculty includes keynotes from speakers of national importance, and multiple workshop sessions on topics such as giving effective feedback, clinical teaching skills, academic promotions, and mentorship. The conference is open to faculty, residents, and fellows from across the Icahn School of Medicine at Mount Sinai and the larger Mount Sinai GME Consortium.

GME Faculty Development Snippets Series

A series of 15- to 30-minute online Faculty Development Modules by leading ISMMS experts are available to faculty, with topics including “Feedback,” “Teaching with Technology,” “Everyday Bias in Clinical Medicine,” and “Teaching at the Bedside.”

GME Faculty MBSR Training Course

Mindfulness-Based Stress Reduction (MBSR) is a protocol developed by Jon Kabat-Zinn, PhD, in the late 1970s at the University of Massachusetts Medical School. It has become the leading curriculum for teaching secular mindfulness practice and is now taught in more than 750 health centers around the world. This certificate course offered to ISMMS faculty follows the traditional curriculum, meeting for two hours once a week for eight weeks, with a six hour "retreat" on the Saturday following the sixth class. 

Upon successful completion of the course, faculty participants will be eligible to attend additional workshops that will prepare them to be mindfulness facilitators for their training programs and departments. In addition, a certificate will be given (if a participant attends at least six classes and the Saturday session), which satisfies the course requirement to embark on MBSR teacher training.

For Program Coordinators/Administrators

The administrators and program coordinators at Mount Sinai are deeply committed to facilitating the smooth operation of our programs across all departments at ISMMS. To help our staff achieve this mission, our administrators and coordinators take part in valuable professional development.

GME Coordinator/Administrator Conference

This annual full-day educational conference for program coordinators and administrators includes multiple workshop sessions on topics related to accreditation and program management, along with professional development sessions on areas such as communication and project management. The conference is open to program coordinators and administrators at the Icahn School of Medicine at Mount Sinai and the larger Mount Sinai GME Consortium.

Consortium for Graduate Medical Education

The Icahn School of Medicine at Mount Sinai Consortium for Graduate Medical Education is dedicated to providing the highest quality education in all programs at all participating institutions. Working with the Graduate Medical Education Office, the Consortium consists of the following institutions in the metropolitan New York area:

The activities and services that are provided to all trainees and faculty, regardless of home institution or specialty, include the following: 

  • Clinical assessment using standardized patients in the School of Medicine’s Morchand Center for Clinical Competence 
  • Two-day retreat for incoming chief residents
  • Annual Resident Research Fair 
  • Full-Day GME Educational Conference for Program Directors and Faculty
  • Full-Day GME Coordinator/Administrator Conference
  • Opportunities for career placement through the utilization of the Job Placement for Residents website.