The Arthur H. Aufses, Jr., MD Archives catalog is available online here. The catalog contains information about all archival holdings, regardless of format. Materials containing information on patients, employees, or students, as well as recent administrative records, are restricted. Please contact the Archives with questions about the collection.

The Mount Sinai Records Management Program serves the entire Mount Sinai Health System, including the Icahn School of Medicine at Mount Sinai. We assist employees throughout the Health System in managing records throughout the entire lifecycle: from creation or receipt, through the use and maintenance stage, until final disposition either to destruction or permanent retention in The Arthur H. Aufses, Jr. MD Archives.

More detailed information on the program is available to Health System employees through the Mount Sinai Intranet.

If you are seeking information regarding medical records, please contact the hospital or office where treatment was received.

A growing amount of Mount Sinai records of permanent historical value are created and managed digitally. The Arthur H. Aufses, Jr. MD Archives seeks to collect Health System records created in digital format and to make our existing digital holdings available online.

Our digital collections are being made available through our catalog and includes images, videos, and documents, as well as oral histories and sound recordings. For a more detailed explanation about access to this material, see our Digital Collections page.

Material that was previously located in our Digital Repository is now available through our catalog. The Image Database is being migrated to the catalog and will be available there by January 2023.

Most of these items have been digitized from their original, physical format. While we work to make material digitally available, there is a wealth of material that is not yet digitized and is available for consultation on-site, subject to our Research Policies, available below. Please contact the Archives for more information.

The Arthur H. Aufses, Jr. MD Archives is making available selected publications that feature the history of the institutions within the Mount Sinai Health System. 

The Arthur H. Aufses, Jr. MD Archives is committed to making research material available to users on equal terms of access. This is in accordance with the standard professional policy on access adopted jointly by the Society of American Archivists and the American Library Association.

Equal access does not mean that all materials are open to research use. Our responsibility is to balance the researcher's need for access with the need for confidentiality of the persons and the institutions whose activities are reflected therein. To that end, please review the General Archive Access Policy. Of particular concern is the unauthorized access to Personal Health Information (PHI) that may be found in the Archives’ collections. A policy on Access to PHI in the Archives, Policy ACS-H.42, has been written outlining how the Archives will protect against unwarranted access to this restricted information. Further, to acknowledge understanding that even unrestricted records may contain protected health information, researchers from outside Mount Sinai must also read and sign the Archives Access Agreement Form.

Please contact The Arthur H. Aufses, Jr. MD Archives directly with any questions about pursuing research in the Archives.

The Arthur H. Aufses, Jr. MD Archives and Mount Sinai Records Management Program provide the following services:

• Answering questions about the history of the Mount Sinai Health System entities
• Assisting researchers and scholars in using the Archives' collections
• Digitizing archival material and providing online access to the digital collections
• Providing images for use in presentations, publications, and displays
• Reviewing files to ascertain appropriate retention periods, allowing non-current records of little value to be discarded, saving storage space and costs
• Serving as a liaison between off-site storage vendors and Mount Sinai departments to ensure smooth service
• Preparing outreach efforts such as exhibits of archival material, blog posts, lobby slides, walking tours of campus, etc. to make the past more readily available to the entire Mount Sinai Health System community

Some of these services may have fees associated with them for people who are not associated with Mount Sinai Health System. Please review our Fee Schedule for information about potential costs.

The Arthur H. Aufses, Jr. MD Archives collects a variety of material to document how the Health System institutions carry out their missions of patient care, education, research, and community service. Records are preserved in physical and digital format.

The following is a partial list of the types of records that the Aufses Archives collects:

• Records of the Boards of Mount Sinai corporations, including agenda, minutes, correspondence, and reports
• Records of the Offices of the President of the Mount Sinai Health System, the Dean of the Icahn School of Medicine at Mount Sinai, and the Presidents of Health System hospitals, including subject files, reports, correspondence, and minutes
• Accreditation reports and supporting documentation
• Materials documenting patient care, including nursing policy and procedure manuals
• Information regarding labor relations, including handbooks, orientation manuals, employee recognition programs, union contracts, and policy manuals
• Departmental records, including subject files, committee minutes, memoranda, lecture notes, syllabi, policy and procedure manuals, and the office files of the department head/System chair
• Minutes, memoranda, publications and reports of all major academic, hospital and administrative committees, including the Medical Boards, their subcommittees, ad hoc committees, and search committees
• Annual budgets and audit reports
• Planning documents
• Records of the Marketing, Public Affairs and Development offices, including fundraising publications, internal publications, press releases, biographical files, and donor files
• Records of student organizations and activities
• All extant records of now defunct organizations, including The Mount Sinai Hospital School of Nursing, the Roosevelt Hospital School of Nursing, the Woman’s Hospital in the State of New York, the Neustadter Convalescent Center, the Mount Sinai Foundation, Astoria General Hospital, and Western Queens Community Hospital
• Audiovisual materials documenting the development of Mount Sinai, such as photographs, negatives, sound recordings, slides, films, and video tapes in analog and digital form
• Laboratory records relating to the existence and function of the labs, including annual reports, lab manuals, staff lists, patent files, grant and contract proposals, newsletters, and protocols.

View the Collections and our Historical Resources.