Primary Care Residency

Primary care physicians are on the front lines providing compassionate, patient-centered, high-quality, cost-effective care. Mount Sinai’s Internal Medicine Primary Care Residency Program Track aims to train primary care physicians who are:

  • Well-rounded and Competent Clinicians capable of providing high-quality, patient-centered, evidence-based clinical care in both inpatient and outpatient settings;
  • Outstanding Educators of both patients and fellow professionals;
  • Committed Advocates for patients and populations for improved health care;
  • Healthcare Leaders in all areas of primary care from the community to national level;
  • Scholars dedicated to primary care and population health research, medical education, and quality improvement.

Unique Aspects of Mount Sinai’s Primary Care Program

Secondary Continuity Clinics: One of the distinct strengths of our Primary Care Residency Program Track is the variety of locations and practices where our residents are able to train. All residents maintain a practice at Mount Sinai's Internal Medicine Associates, a hospital-based clinic and the largest primary care provider in the East Harlem community. Each primary care resident also develops a continuity practice in another setting such as a community health center, a federally qualified health center, the Visiting Doctors Program, or specialty primary care such as HIV medicine.

Curriculum: We offer a comprehensive, interactive, and project-based curriculum covering topics such as primary care core skills, advocacy and population health, research and scholarship, medical education, leadership, as well as personal development and reflection.

Tailored Programming: A key strength of our program is its focus on developing individualized paths for each resident and class. In order to provide our residents with the unique tools and skillsets for success in their future primary care careers, residents help to design their own goals and experiences.  

Unique Experiences: As noted below, our residents have the opportunity to engage with patients and local communities via experiences in the communities such as visits to Rikers Island, teaching at community health centers, and volunteering at local food pantries.

4 Year Primary Care-Geriatrics Program: For applicants interested in a career in geriatrics, we have a new ACGME accredited PC-Geri program. Residents will train for three years in our IM-PC Track followed by a one year geriatrics fellowship here at Mount Sinai. These residents will receive six months of geriatric training built into their IM residency, including a secondary continuity practice in geriatrics, and an additional 6 months of scholarship time in their fellowship.

Graduated Residents

Our residents go on to practice primary care in a number of settings as well as complete additional training in research and health policy.  Approximately 70-75% of our graduates go on to primary care practice or research while the other 25-30% enter specialty fields with an ambulatory focus such as endocrinology or rheumatology.  Graduated residents practice primary care in a variety of settings including academic practices, community-based practices, private practice, and healthcare start-ups.  

Applicants interested in the Primary Care Residency should make sure to use the appropriate NMRP number and to contact Jennifer Weintraub, MD, Director of the Primary Care Residency Program Track, or Kenneth Fifer, MD, Assistant Director of the Primary Care Residency Program Track with any questions.

Our interactive and novel three year curriculum is delivered to residents during primary care elective blocks. These elective blocks are evenly spaced over the three-year residency to allow us to build and deepen our knowledge of a wide variety of topics, organized below:

Curriculum Layout

  • Primary Care Core: This is where we learn the “core” topics of primary care. Topics are quite varied but include topics such as: how to care for specific populations (geriatrics, LGBTQ health, formerly incarcerated individuals, etc), the practice of integrative medicine, management substance use disorders, advanced musculoskeletal exams, and many more!
  • Advocacy and Population Health: How to we learn how to be advocates for our patients, ourselves, and our healthcare system? How do we care for both individuals and populations? How do we care for both individuals and populations? This series uses a mix of off-site experiences and resident-driven initiatives to learn about our healthcare system and ways we can initiate meaningful change.
  • Leadership and Career Development: We recognize that no two career paths are identical. Our goal is to give our residents the tools necessary to build their own unique careers while becoming effective and confident leaders in the process. We accomplish this through a mix of readings and discussions, leadership training sessions with key leaders across our institution, and career sessions with physicians who practice medicine in different and inspiring ways. Connecting residents with mentors is another key aspect.
  • Scholarship and Education: In order to improve and grow the field of medicine, our residents all conduct their own research projects with mentors across Mount Sinai. Each resident also develops and teaches their own educational session that is delivered to their peers. Under close mentorship and guidance from our primary care track directors, we use a personized and step-wise approach to give residents a framework for future work in these areas.
  • Personal Development and Reflection: An essential part of caring for our patients also involves caring for ourselves. Through the use of narrative medicine, books clubs, and reflection, we join with our colleagues across the hospital to discuss spirituality, ethics, and create a safe space to process our experiences practicing medicine.

Secondary clinics: All residents have a primary care panel at IMA (the Internal Medicine Associates) practice on 102nd Street. In addition, our primary care residents are matched to a secondary elective site where they see a panel of patients longitudinally during their residency. This allows our residents to care for different populations than we typically see in clinic and experience practicing primary care in another setting. Sites include:

Clinical rotations: Each resident spends time in specialty clinics across Mount Sinai, including geriatrics, dermatology, rheumatology, cardiology, transgender care etc. We tailor clinical rotations to each resident’s individual interests.

To learn how to fully care for a community, we leave the walls of our hospital to get out and truly engage our patients and their communities in the following ways (not a comprehensive list):

  • Tour of East Harlem
  • Visit to local food pantries
  • Supportive housing experiences
  • Riker’s Island healthcare delivery tour

We organize a variety of health trainings so our residents are fully equipped to take care of the most vulnerable people in our society. Examples of these trainings include:

  • Buprenorphine/naltrexone substance use disorder treatment training, with the opportunity to spend time in the REACH program
  • Intimate Partner Violence Training
  • Human Rights Forensic Asylum Training
    • Residents will be trained how to perform medical examinations and document findings in an affidavit as part of the legal case for persons who are fleeing persecution and seeking asylum in the United States

We also participate in advocacy work. Past involvement has included a trip to speak with our national representatives in Washington DC for SGIM’s Hill Day. Residents have met with local representatives to advocate for vital health topics in New York City and have participated in a variety of marches across Manhattan to stand up for change.

Each resident creates a scholarly project under close mentorship from Sinai faculty, and most present their work at local or national conferences at least once during their residency.

We are proud of this selection of posters and oral presentations by our residents at National SGIM 2023!

  • Katie Allyn: Don’t Sweat it: a Case of Heat Stroke Induced Liver Injury
  • Alex Coritsidis: Severe Pancytopenia from Nepal
  • Marc Henry Estriplet: Rectifying the Ills of Policy Past through Medical Education
  • Tatiana Requijo: Anchoring on Constipation: A Delayed Diagnosis of Metastatic Ovarian Cancer
  • Nick Safian: Nothing Typical about this: Diagnosing Ebstein-Barr Virus (EBV) Mononucleosis in an Adult with Atypical Lymphocytosis
  • Zach Stauber: Not so Water Fast: A Case of Water Fasting Induced Nutritional Deficiency Cardiomyopathy
  • Shaleen Thakur: Geriatric Depression: Forget Me Not
  • Stacy Tsai: Blood Pressure Control Fluctuation and Quality Standards
  • Shira Yellin: Ditch the ITch: Treatment and Malignancy Workup in Patients with Chronic Spontaneous Urticaria
  • Alex Coritsidis: Bright Red Blood Per Rectum? Yes, It’s Syphilis.
  • Marc Henry Estriplet: Virus that Keeps on Giving - Rash and Abdominal Pain in a Young Male
  • Rebecca Lawrence: Dialogue and IUD for Endometrial Cancer, Please! Lessons Learned from a Pre-Transplant Evaluation
  • Angela Lee: Discovery of a Germline p53 Mutation in a Patient not Meeting Diagnostic Criteria for Li Fraumeni Syndrome: A Cancer Surveillance Conundrum
  • Tracey Rosa and Katherine Allyn: Get the Lead Out – Rapid Diagnosis and Treatment of Neuroleptic Malignant Syndrome in the Hospital Setting

PGY1

PGY1s complete 6 additional weeks of an ambulatory primary care elective, complementing the 14 weeks of ambulatory primary care, for a total of 20 weeks of primary care. In conjunction with the comprehensive primary care ambulatory curriculum delivered during ambulatory primary care, the intern year focuses on developing core basic skills in primary care. The clinical rotations center on providing continuity of care at our ambulatory care sites along with specialty clinics in geriatrics, visiting doctors, HIV care, addiction medicine, and exposure to various outpatient specialties. The curriculum introduces residents to topics such as health policy, advocacy, scholarship, and integrative medicine. During this year, PGY1s begin to identify a mentor and an associated research project based upon mutual interests.

PGY2

PGY2s have 8 additional weeks of an ambulatory primary care elective, complementing the 12-week program of ambulatory primary care, for a total of 20 weeks of primary care. In the PGY2 year, residents hone their primary care skills by rotating through other specialty care clinics in addition to their continuity practices. The curriculum further delves into health policy, advocacy, ethics, and spirituality in medicine. Early in the year, residents select their research mentor and begin work on their major scholarly project.

PGY3

PGY3 residents have 8 additional weeks of an ambulatory primary care elective, complementing the 14 weeks of ambulatory primary care, for a total of 22 weeks of primary care. In the PGY3 year, residents begin to take on leadership roles in the outpatient setting. The curriculum focuses on medical education, teaching, and leadership development.  PGY3s ultimately complete their scholarly projects and present their work at Medicine Research Day as well as at regional and national meetings.

Dina Zaret, MD, PGY-3

I was a lifelong Philadelphian before coming to Mount Sinai! I studied Health and Societies at the University of Pennsylvania for undergrad before going to Thomas Jefferson University for medical school. I worked in a Hepatitis C clinic before and during medical school, and applied to the Primary Care track at Mount Sinai to get more longitudinal experience working at HIV treatment centers. The Primary Care track has been an amazing community within the larger program, a group with varied end goals but unifying interests in preventive medicine, public health, and advocacy. I was originally thinking about going into HIV primary care but have grown more interested in hepatology this past year, both outpatient preventive liver medicine as well as the intersection of liver disease and palliative care. I’m so glad to be at Sinai where I have the opportunity to explore all of these fields and have guidance from leaders in them, as well as from our Primary Care and Categorical internal medicine program directors.

Marc Estriplet II, MD, MPH, PGY-3

Hey there! I'm Marc Henry Estriplet. Originally from New Jersey, I did most of my formative education at Rutgers University for college and medical school (New Jersey Medical School) while completing my master's in public health at Columbia. While I had a good idea that I would want to pursue a career in Internal Medicine early, I did not realize until much later my interest in primary care. Due to limited ambulatory time in medical school, I did not understand the diversity of primary care. Furthermore, I did not understand how my interest in public health strongly intersected with General Internal Medicine. Some of the most prominent change agents in medicine come from primary care and GIM, and it is my belief this is primarily due to the unique education and training we get in primary care.

When choosing a residency program, I was looking for a program that would give me excellent clinical training while also giving me the flexibility and opportunity to pursue my aspirations. Our primary care track has done just that with our amazing PDs doing everything in their power to turn our visions for the future into reality. In the clinics you have the opportunity to rotate through as a primary care resident, you will truly get a sense of what and how primary care means so many different things to many different people. You'll get the opportunity to deep dive into the primary care world of women's health, HIV medicine, addiction medicine, visiting docs, and so much more.

Of the many things this program excels in is the diversity of patients and life experiences we see daily. As a resident of color, I sought a residency that served a diverse population in a rigorous academic setting. Our patient population encompasses people from a myriad of ethnicities, religions, races, and socio-economic status. This range prepares us to be able to treat each patient as an individual instead of treating them as a diagnosis. From the Internal Medical Associate clinic to the Mount Sinai floors, Elmhurst and the VA, you truly get to experience it all.

However, the best attribute of this program is the people. I remember constantly hearing about how great the people were while interviewing, and I can tell you they have lived up to the hype. I love being able to work with so many down-to-earth people despite the very academic environment. I wanted a program where people cared about medicine but also cared about people, from their patients to their coworkers. Residency is not easy but having great people around makes a world of difference.