"Local Hospital Launches Nation’s First Fellowship For Doctors To Learn Gender Affirming Surgery" - Erin Billups
Ronald Phillips started modeling at a young age, growing up in front of the camera, a picture perfect guy but inside Phillips felt anything but. At 36 years old, Phillips began life as Mahogany – a transgender woman but completing the transition proved difficult and expensive, until she learned about Mount Sinai’s Center for Transgender Medicine and Surgery. Mahogany is one of about 350 transgender individuals to undergo surgery at the center since it opened early last year. “In a city as big as New York there were only a couple of surgeons even trained to do these operations,” said Jess Ting, MD, director of surgery at the Mount Sinai center. The center has launched the country’s first, yearlong, transgender surgery fellowship. Bella Avanessian , MD, is the first surgical fellow, she said before she was only able to shadow transgender specialists for two weeks at a time. With 40 percent of transgender adults attempting suicide, the center also focuses on patients’ mental health needs and has launched a new psychiatry fellowship. ”We’re talking about an issue that is a matter of life and death,” said Hansel Arroyo, MD, lead psychiatrist at Mount Sinai’s Center for Transgender Medicine and Surgery. “Training this generation of psychiatrists and becoming adept to transgender health and transitional therapies is crucial.”
- Jess Ting, MD, Surgical Director, Mount Sinai’s Center for Transgender Medicine and Surgery, Assistant Professor, Plastic and Reconstructive Surgery, Icahn School of Medicine at Mount Sinai
- Hansel Arroyo, MD, Psychiatry Director, Mount Sinai’s Center for Transgender Medicine and Surgery, Associate Professor, Psychiatry, Icahn School of Medicine at Mount Sinai
- Bella Avanessian, MD, Surgery Fellow, Mount Sinai’s Center for Transgender Medicine and Surgery
- Matthew Dominguez, MD, Psychiatry Fellow, Mount Sinai’s Center for Transgender Medicine and Surgery