The Icahn School of Medicine at Mount Sinai (ISMMS) students are involved in advocacy and activism to advance equity and justice for the patients and communities we serve and build community amongst each other to foster an inclusive learning and training environment.
Key Programs: Medical and Graduate Student Groups, Electives, and Programs
The CMCA staff serve as faculty advisors and consultants to ISMMS student organizations and student-led electives. These groups offer students a variety of opportunities for community engagement, professional development, and pathways for becoming involved in social justice and health advocacy opportunities:
- Deconstructing Race in Health and Medicine: Our Patients, Our Selves (Nexus Elective)
- East Harlem Health Outreach Partnership
- Health and Human Rights and Social Justice Scholars Program
- ISMMS Chapter of the Asian Pacific American Medical Student Association (APAMSA)
- ISMMS Chapter of the Latino Medical Student Association (LMSA)
- ISMMS Chapter of the Student National Medical Association (SNMA)
- MedDOCS
- MedSTART Summer Enrichment Camp
- Mentoring in Neuroscience Discovery at Sinai (MiNDS)
- Muslim Student Association
- South Asian Medical Students Association (SAMSA)
- Stonewall Alliance
- Students for Equal Opportunity in Medicine (SEOM)
- Students for Equal Opportunity in Science (SEOS)
Language Proficiency in Healthcare Program
The CMCA administers this initiative, which houses and supports the Medical Spanish/Medicina en Español and Medical Mandarin programs. Our goal is to develop, train, and graduate proficient Spanish- and Mandarin-speaking, culturally competent physicians who can better meet the needs of culturally diverse patients. For more information, contact, Edward Poliandro, PhD.
Medical Spanish/Medicina en Español
Working with faculty from the Art and Science of Medicine Courses, we organize these Spanish language courses to parallel what you are learning in your medical training. Primera Languages, an organization that provides language and cultural education in professional contexts, developed the Spanish-language curriculum, which we supplement with bilingual faculty members who invite students to observe their encounters with Spanish-speaking patients. We offer beginner, intermediate, and advanced modules to first and second-year medical students.
Medical Mandarin
A student-run organization, its mission is to improve interactions between Mandarin-speaking patients and our health care providers. In addition to language skills, Medical Mandarin also offers cultural competency education to produce physicians who are not only better communicators but also understand the intricacies of Chinese cultural traditions and their effects on health care.