The Rise Project is the MSTP’s initiative to foster a community rooted in Mount Sinai’s values of excellence, innovation, collaboration, and belonging. Reflecting the School’s mission to advance science, medicine, and health care delivery for the benefit of humanity, the initiative supports the development of physician-scientists who bring a wide range of experiences and perspectives to their training. Through seminars, guest speakers, and facilitated conversations, The Rise Project creates opportunities for reflection and dialogue on the broader contexts of health, research, leadership, and education. It is dedicated not only to fostering these values within the program but also to instilling them in trainees as future leaders who will shape inclusive, collaborative, and ethical research and clinical environments. The initiative elevates the student experience by ensuring that each MD-PhD trainee feels supported through community and accessible resources, and has the opportunity to thrive personally, professionally, and academically.

Meet the Physician-Scientist is an informal networking and community-building program that gives MD-PhD students the opportunity to connect with physician-scientists from across Mount Sinai and beyond. Through small-group conversations and meet-and-greet events, students engage directly with faculty and alumni to learn about different career paths, research interests, clinical specialties, and experiences in academic medicine and biomedical research.

The program is designed to foster mentorship, encourage career exploration, and strengthen physician-scientist identity in a relaxed and interactive setting. Students gain exposure to a wide range of perspectives while building connections with physician-scientist role models across disciplines.

The MSTP Leadership Course is a unique training program designed to equip MD-PhD students with the necessary leadership and management skills to succeed in their training and future careers as physician-scientists. Based on real-world research and experiences of graduate students and postdocs, the MSTP Leadership Course uses an active-learning format to teach skills in communication strategies, conflict management, and navigating organizational hierarchies. 

Structured into four weekly sessions that build on one another, the MSTP Leadership focuses on topics such as professionalism, leading without authority, working in teams, and creating inclusive cultures. Through discussions of authentic case studies, participants will learn how to develop functional teams that respect diversity and foster inclusion. 

This full-year course was designed with the goal of emphasizing cross-fertilization between basic science and clinical medicine, and as an additional mechanism for providing continued contact with the medical community for students during the PhD Phase.

Student participation is required through the end of PhD training. Centered upon a clinical case presented by senior MD-PhD students with Mount Sinai house staff and clinical faculty, the student and house staff lead a discussion through the clinical reasoning that led to the diagnosis and treatment. The discussion of the clinical topic will then lead into the second part of the session, a presentation of PhD research by a senior MD-PhD student that provides some background behind the pathophysiology of a disease and/or a therapeutic approach. Senior clinicians and scientists are invited to attend and participate in the discussions.

The sessions close with comments from the faculty regarding the significance of the topic and frontiers to be advanced by future research in the field. The objectives of this course are to:

• Interact with students at various levels of the MD-PhD Program
• Meet clinical and basic science faculty as potential mentors/advisors
• Learn about translational science as it pertains to a specific field
• Engage in a dialogue between clinicians and scientists through moderated panel discussion
• Identify key gaps in knowledge within specific fields.

MSTP TREK Academy is a foundational orientation and professional development program that supports students as they begin physician-scientist training at Mount Sinai. Developed in collaboration with the Center for Stress, Resilience, and Personal Growth, the program emphasizes resilience, leadership, mentorship, and intentional career development while helping students build community within the MD-PhD program.

The curriculum is organized around five core components:

• Physician-scientist identity and career development
• Mentorship and professional relationships
• Research readiness and laboratory exploration
• Leadership, communication, and teamwork
• Wellness, resilience, and personal growth

Through workshops, faculty discussions, mentorship activities, and individualized advising, students are encouraged to view themselves as future leaders in academic medicine, biomedical research, and health care innovation.

MSTP Horizons is a longitudinal career and professional development series that spans all phases of MD-PhD training at Mount Sinai. Designed to support the evolving needs of physician-scientist trainees, Horizons provides structured guidance in mentorship, career planning, funding pathways, leadership development, and transition management throughout the dual-degree pathway.

Through small-group discussions, workshops, alumni panels, and faculty advising, students gain practical insight into physician-scientist careers across academia, industry, biotechnology, and health systems. The program emphasizes intentional career development while fostering community, reflection, and professional identity formation.

Representative topics include:

• Physician-scientist career pathways
• Fellowship and grant funding strategies
• Residency and research-integrated training pathways
• Mentorship networks and sponsorship
• Leadership and communication skills
• Work-life integration and career sustainability
• Academic advancement and protected research time

MSTP Horizons is designed to help trainees navigate transitions across medical school, PhD training, and clinical re-entry while preparing them for long-term success as physician-scientists.

MSTP Bedside Rounds is a longitudinal clinical enrichment series designed to help MD-PhD students maintain clinical engagement and strengthen physician-scientist identity during the PhD phase of training. Led by clinician-scientist faculty, the program provides opportunities for small-group bedside teaching, clinical reasoning, and patient-centered discussion across a range of specialties.

Through direct patient interaction and case-based learning, students reinforce core clinical skills while exploring the connection between scientific discovery and patient care. Bedside Rounds also fosters mentorship, community building, and continued integration within the clinical learning environment during extended research training.

The program is designed to support continuity of clinical thinking and facilitate a smooth transition back into the clinical curriculum following completion of the PhD phase.

The MD-PhD Clinical Refresher Course is a required re-entry program designed to support students transitioning from full-time PhD research back into the clinical curriculum. Conducted immediately prior to clerkship re-entry, the course provides structured reinforcement of core clinical skills, clinical reasoning, and patient-centered care following extended immersion in research training.

Through small-group teaching, simulated and real patient encounters, direct observation, and individualized feedback, students review history-taking, physical examination, oral presentations, clinical documentation, and differential diagnosis development in a supportive learning environment. The course also prepares trainees for the workflow, expectations, and team-based dynamics of modern clinical training.

The Clinical Refresher Course has been refined over more than two decades through iterative trainee and faculty feedback and has served as a model for physician-scientist re-entry training nationally. Published outcomes from the program have demonstrated improvements in student confidence, clinical readiness, and transition back to patient care activities.

The objectives of the MD-PhD Clinical Refresher Course are to:

• Reinforce core clinical skills prior to clerkship re-entry
• Strengthen clinical reasoning and differential diagnosis development
• Restore confidence in patient interaction and clinical communication
• Provide direct observation and individualized faculty feedback
• Prepare students for team-based clinical care and clerkship workflow
• Support a smooth transition from research training back to clinical medicine

Biomedical Sciences (BMS) for MD-PhD Students is a graduate-level foundational course sequence designed specifically for physician-scientist trainees during the pre-clerkship phase of the MD curriculum. Integrated with the ASCEND curriculum, BMS provides MD-PhD students with advanced training in biomedical science, experimental design, critical analysis of the literature, and translational thinking early in training.

Through lectures, journal clubs, technology-focused sessions, and interactive discussions, students explore molecular and cellular mechanisms of disease while developing skills in scientific reasoning, hypothesis generation, and data interpretation. The curriculum emphasizes rigor, reproducibility, and the integration of basic science with clinical medicine.

Topics include:

• Experimental design and scientific rigor
• Molecular and cellular mechanisms of disease
• Immunology, microbiology, and genetics
• Translational and therapeutic development
• Data analysis and critical evaluation of scientific literature
• Research proposal development and scientific communication

The BMS curriculum helps establish a strong scientific foundation for subsequent laboratory rotations, PhD research, and physician-scientist training while fostering collaboration and intellectual community among MD-PhD students.