(New York, NY—September 11, 2008)—Mount Sinai School of Medicine’s Center for Multicultural and Community Affairs (CMCA) was recently awarded a $2.3 million grant over a three-year period to establish a new Northeast Regional Health Career Opportunity Program. The program is geared toward exposing disadvantaged students to healthcare professions. The award was made possible through a grant from the Health Career Opportunity Program (HCOP) of the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services Health Resources and Services Administration. It will bring together expertise from other major urban academic medical centers, including Columbia University College of Physicians and Surgeons, UMDNJ – New Jersey Medical School, and the Manhattan Staten Island Area Health Education Center (MSI AHEC) to help implement the program.

"Mount Sinai has historically been dedicated to increasing participation of individuals from disadvantaged backgrounds in medical and scientific professions," said Dr. Gary Butts, Director of the CMCA and Associate Dean for Diversity Policy, Programs, and Community Affairs at Mount Sinai School of Medicine. "CMCA at Mount Sinai looks forward to being the lead organization for the new Northeast Regional HCOP Alliance, which uniquely builds on the collective expertise of three outstanding institutions to expand health careers preparation for minority and disadvantaged students from junior high school through medical school with the goal of increasing diversity in the health professions."

More specifically, the program will kick off this month with the recruitment of 200 disadvantaged 7th- to 12th-graders. By year three of the program, some 600 students will be enrolled. Participants will take academic enrichment courses during the school year and spend a summer at one of the medical schools in a six-week program to explore different healthcare career options in hospital and research settings. In addition, each year of the program, 80 medical-school-bound college students will be tapped to take an intensive, four-week course to help them prepare for the Medical College Admissions Test. And another 80 college students will be selected annually to participate in a six-week science skills enrichment program to help bolster their chances of getting into medical school.

"This collaboration brings together three academic medical centers with the same goal of providing education and opportunities necessary to expand the community of providers dedicated to eliminating health care disparities. Combining the strengths of each institution creates a unique and effective partnership," said Hilda Hutcherson, MD, Associate Dean Office of Diversity at Columbia University College of Physicians and Surgeons.

"At a time when funding for important programs like this is scarce, this unique collaboration of medical schools and institutions represents a coup for promising youngsters," said Maria Soto-Greene, MD, Vice Dean of UMDNJ-New Jersey Medical School. "Once competitors for this type of funding, we are now partners to realize the shared goal of helping those who would otherwise have limited opportunities to explore careers in medicine and science."

"The Association of American Medical Colleges has noted that while racial and ethnic minorities make up 25 percent of the U.S. population, only 12 percent of students graduating from our nation’s medical schools are from these groups," added Dr. Soto-Greene, who also serves as the National Chair-Elect of the Group on Student Affairs/Minority Affairs Section of the AAMC. "This collaboration is a step toward remedying this disparity."

The program helps level the playing field for disadvantaged students and creates a pipeline to help youngsters navigate the challenging path to health-related careers, stated Mary Mitchell, Executive Director of the MSI AHEC.

"MSI AHEC is uniquely aware of the significance of recruiting and engaging minority high school students in health professions education programs, and we are proud to support this collaboration with our expertise in this area," Mitchell said.

Other components of the program will include: cultural competency training for college students; a pre-matriculation program for incoming medical students; health disparities research program for enrolled medical students; and assistance for medical students to help them prepare for the United States Medical Licensing Examination™.

About the Center for Multicultural and Community Affairs of the Mount Sinai School of Medicine
The Center for Multicultural and Community Affairs is dedicated to increasing the participation of individuals from disadvantaged backgrounds in medical and scientific professions. The Center for Multicultural and Community Affairs (CMCA) at Mount Sinai School of Medicine is the interface for educational pipeline programs, minority affairs, institution-wide diversity initiatives, academic support for medical students, faculty development, and culture and medicine programs.

The Center’s mission is to support improving community health outcomes and reducing race and ethnic health outcome disparities through increasing health care workforce diversity and scientific inquiry, which impacts health policy. The CMCA has developed and is responsible for a range of programs and initiatives that target groups as young as junior high school children to inspire and have them pursue medicine and other health professions as careers and to support and encourage senior clinical faculty to focus their research and clinical efforts on eliminating health outcomes disparities.

About The Mount Sinai Medical Center
The Mount Sinai Medical Center encompasses The Mount Sinai Hospital and Mount Sinai School of Medicine. The Mount Sinai Hospital is one of the nation’s oldest, largest and most-respected voluntary hospitals. Founded in 1852, Mount Sinai today is a 1,171-bed tertiary-care teaching facility that is internationally acclaimed for excellence in clinical care. Last year, nearly 50,000 people were treated at Mount Sinai as inpatients, and there were nearly 450,000 outpatient visits to the Medical Center.

Mount Sinai School of Medicine is internationally recognized as a leader in groundbreaking clinical and basic-science research, as well as having an innovative approach to medical education. With a faculty of more than 3,400 in 38 clinical and basic science departments and centers, Mount Sinai ranks among the top 20 medical schools in receipt of National Institute of Health (NIH) grants.