The Center for Multicultural and Community Affairs enhances our focus on diversity and inclusion among faculty, staff, and students, through research and education, to engage with and care for culturally diverse patient populations.
Scholarly Activities
Some of our scholarly activities are:
Conduits CCARP
CMCA co-directs the Centers for Community & Academic Research Partnerships (CCARP), a center of Mount Sinai's Conduits program.
Mount Sinai Journal of Medicine
CMCA was featured in the April 2010 edition on Race and Genes and the December 2008 issue on Diversity and Minority Faculty Development.
Mount Sinai Summer Institute for NeuroAIDS Disparities
Funded by the National Institutes of Mental Health and conducted in conjunction with the Manhattan HIV Brain Bank, our mission is threefold:
- To stimulate research into NeuroAIDS disorders in minority populations.
- To provide multidisciplinary education to young scientists interested in pursuing NeuroAIDS research.
- To encourage scientists from underrepresented groups to enter the field.
The Office for Diversity and Inclusion’s CMCA Irwin Gelernt Summer Research Scholar Program for First-Year ISMMS Students Underrepresented in Medicine
We award this merit-based scholarship to a first-year Icahn School of Medicine at Mount Sinai student who is a member of a racial and or ethnic underrepresented group in medicine and who has demonstrated dedication to leadership, advocacy, and service within the community. The scholarship carries a stipend, mentorship, networking opportunities, access to professional and technical resources, and the opportunity to conduct and present a focused research project and participate in professional development workshops. The CMCA Scholarship Committee solicits nominations and makes a selection annually in the fall. For more information, please contact cmca@mssm.edu.
Golden Family Community Pediatrics Research Award Program
This program, operated by CMCA and the Division of General Pediatrics, enables medical school students to undertake longitudinal, mentored projects in community pediatrics. Some previous projects are developing and supporting medical student interest in a broad array of community pediatric issues, increasing knowledge and awareness of issues related to children in the context of their families and communities, and cultivating ongoing mentorship relationships for students with mentors in community pediatrics. The program is open to all ISMMS medical students.
Curricular Activities
CMCA is involved in improving the cultural competence of our curriculum at the Icahn School of Medicine at Mount Sinai. Our curriculum-oriented endeavors include the following:
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.