The Mount Sinai Human Rights Program (MSHRP) is the Icahn School of Medicine’s student-run, physician supervised free clinic that serves asylum seekers to the United States who have fled persecution in their countries of origin. MSHRP seeks to advance health, dignity, and justice, both locally and globally by providing pro bono, trauma-informed, and culturally responsive medical and mental health evaluations, social services, and access to continuity medical care to survivors of torture and human rights abuses. We provide a holistic approach to care by incorporating innovative training and research to positively impact the lives of asylum seekers. Since its inception in 2015, the program has assisted over 200 asylum seekers annually in the New York City community, U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement detention centers, and across the nation remotely in geographically underserved areas where few human rights programs exist. Our clinicians and students use their unique expertise to address our patient’s health needs through expedited forensic psychological and physical evaluations that document evidence of trauma. The impact of these evaluations and the resulting medical-legal affidavits cannot be overstated, as they exponentially increase the rate at which asylum seekers are granted protected immigration status in the United States (92% MSHRP asylum grant rate v.s.34% nationally without a medical evaluation). This sets newly arrived migrants on a course to rebuild their lives and to actively participate and contribute to their communities.

The program is committed to cultivating the next generation of dedicated and competent human rights experts and advocates, and fosters medical student leadership, clinical skills development, and professional mentorship. Icahn Mount Sinai students are responsible for the daily programmatic functioning of the MSHRP under the guidance of its faculty leaders. In addition, students:

• participate in clinical work documenting sequelae of physical and mental trauma
• conduct mentored, evidence-based research to advance best practices, promote policy solutions, and elucidate the lived experiences and needs of the population we serve
• engage in advocacy to promote health and human rights locally and globally
• partner with pro bono immigration attorneys and community-based organizations to support the resettlement and essential needs of migrants in the United States

Our students benefit from training at diverse clinical settings located throughout Manhattan and across the tristate area. Having the opportunity to spend time at an urban city hospital with tremendous ethnic and language diversity, a large veterans affairs medical center, or a recognized hospital leader in community-based health care, enables our students to learn about quality health care at every level. These sites include:

• The Mount Sinai Hospital
• Mount Sinai Beth Israel
• Mount Sinai Queens
• Mount Sinai West
• Mount Sinai Morningside
• New York Eye and Ear Infirmary of Mount Sinai
• BronxCare Health System
• The Brooklyn Hospital Center
• Elmhurst Hospital Center
• James J. Peters Veterans Affairs Medical
• The New Jewish Home, Manhattan

We build in-patient care opportunities from the very start of medical training. The Longitudinal Clinical Experience Program allows pairs of students to begin caring for chronically ill patients within weeks of starting medical school.

The Morchand Center for Clinical Competence, one of the nation’s first such training centers, is dedicated to equipping today's medical students to become tomorrow's compassionate physicians. By hiring trained actors to simulate the signs of an illness, and to provide feedback to the medical student learners, The Morchand Center for Clinical Competence emphasizes the importance of thoughtful and sensitive patient care.

Simulation education is a bridge between classroom learning and real-life clinical experience. Our simulation facilities throughout the Mount Sinai Health System create realistic environments and situations where learners are engaged in providing health care. Medical students are exposed to stimulation exercises throughout their medical school education.

East Harlem Health Outreach Partnership is a student-run, free primary-care clinic serving uninsured residents of East Harlem. Volunteering at the clinic allows medical students to combine patient care with community service, and serves as a reminder of the reasons why they came to medical school in the first place.

The Icahn School of Medicine views students as true partners in biomedical progress, and offers a learning environment which features:

• Active, small group, and team-based learning that encourages collective problem solving and peer teaching.
• Early interactions with patients through the Longitudinal Clinical Experience Program, which partners pairs of medical students with a patient and supervising physician.
• Protected half-days of flex time in Years 1-4 for self-directed, individualized learning, discovery, and leadership development.
• Faculty advisories that support medical students in academics, wellness, and career advising throughout their medical school journey.
• Learning support for medical students around adjustment to medical school, study strategies, and effective ways to make the most out of courses, clerkships, and study resources.
• A four-year wellness curriculum that emphasizes resilience and empathy.
• Ample time and mentorship for exploration of career choices, as well as flexible scheduling, including the option of adding a Scholarly Year.
• Specialty-specific, skills-based preparation for supervised practice in residency.
• The Scholarship and Research (SCHOLaR) Program, which offers students the opportunity to obtain mentored research training toward developing a scholarly project.
• A strong emphasis on service learning and urban primary care in the curriculum and in the community.
• Opportunities to travel internationally and participate in advanced mentored missions that address the health care, education, research, and public health needs of our global community.