By Margaret Baron, MD, PhD

It is a real pleasure and a privilege to have been appointed Director of our Medical Scientist Training (MD-PhD) Program. I have ambitious plans for this program and will look to our exceptionally talented students to help me put these plans into action. I am grateful to Eric Nestler for his inspirational leadership as Interim Director and am delighted that he has agreed to continue his involvement in the program as Senior Advisor. I also thank the former Director, Yasmin Hurd, for her support and guidance as I take on my new responsibilities. Read more ▶

By Andrew Leader (entering class of 2014)

It was a chilly winter afternoon, the wind blowing softly with hints of pine and paprika, when I stepped off a middle-bank elevator into 23-02. This office houses members of Mount Sinai’s Infectious Diseases faculty. With the recent appointment of two of its members, Benjamin Chen and Talia Swartz, as MD/PhD program Associate Directors, the office has transformed into a de facto command center, where key decisions are made which will impact the program for years to come. I sat down with Ben and Talia to get to know them better. Here’s what happened.

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By Teddy Wohlbold (entering class of 2011)

Dmitriy Zamarin is a Mount Sinai MSTP Alumnus, Class of 2008, and current faculty member at Memorial Sloan Kettering Cancer Center.

What training did you do post graduation to arrive at your current position?

A research track residency (2 years) in Internal Medicine at Mount Sinai, followed by a fellowship in Hematology/ Oncology at Memorial Sloan Kettering Cancer Center (MSKCC) (4 years). This is called “short tracking” – meaning your residency training is cut by 1 year and your fellowship training is extended for an extra year, allowing you to concentrate on what you are interested in. Upon completion of training, I stayed on as a faculty member at MSKCC, focusing on basic and clinical research in immunotherapy and gynecologic medical oncology. Read more ▶

Julian Gingold, MD, PhD
Obstetrics-Gynecology
Cleveland Clinic

Caroline Dias, MD, PhD
Pediatrics
Childrens Hospital Boston

Jason Cook, MD, PhD
Vascular Surgery
Barnes-Jewish Hospital

Jay Pendse, MD, PhD
Internal Medicine/Research
NYU School of Medicine

Emir Senturk, MD, PhD
General Surgery
Brigham & Womens Hospital

Sarah Ann Anderson, MD, PhD
Pediatrics
NYP Columbia University

Shan Zhao, MD, PhD
Entrepreneurship
Telequire LLC

Elizabeth Schwartz, MD, PhD
Psychiatry
George Washington University

Dailia Francis, MD, PhD
Pediatrics
University of Pittsburgh

Christopher Seibert, MD, PhD
Anesthesiology
University of Pennsylvania

By Sandhya Chandrasekharan (entering class of 2013)

This past year, Mount Sinai MSTP Associate Director Talia Swartz spearheaded a new monthly MD/PhD clinical case series for students to hone their clinical reasoning and problem-solving skills. The sessions have been well received, and reflect some of the exciting changes being conceived and implemented in the physician-scientist training framework.

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By Cindy Tian (incoming class of 2013)

Residency Specialization by MSTP Alumni 1976-2015

MTA Distribution of Current MSTP Students

ISMMS in the News

• ISMMS recently announced a new partnership with McKinsey & Company on an MD/Management Consulting track for third-year medical students consisting of a two-year Fellowship in Healthcare Consulting.
• The Seaver Autism Center at ISMMS recently received a five-year, $6 million grant to serve as part of the elite Developmental Synaptopathies Consortium studying three rare genetic syndromes causing autism spectrum disorder and intellectual disability.
• ISMMS was named one of the “World’s Top Ten Most Innovative Companies in Big Data” by Fast Company Magazine in 2014. ISMMS was ranked no. 5 behind IBM for faculty recruitment and research in personalized genomics, the development of Mount Sinai’s $3 million supercomputer, Minerva, and BioMe, a database of genomic samples from more than 25,000 patients.

By David Chiang (incoming class of 2009)

On September 8, 2014, Dr. Eric J. Nestler became interim MD/PhD director, taking charge while the hunt for our new director was ongoing. In his short time as interim director, Dr. Nestler represented the program through the interview season and led us bravely in enacting positive changes for the program.

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