Mount Sinai Center for Transgender Medicine and Surgery Appoints New Executive Director
Joshua Safer, MD, an internationally renowned clinical endocrinologist and authority on transgender medicine, has joined the Mount Sinai Health System as Executive Director of the Center for Transgender Medicine and Surgery (CTMS). The CTMS is the first and only center in New York—and one of a few pioneers nationwide—to provide transgender patients with a comprehensive and integrated system of care.
Dr. Safer, the Center’s first executive director, will also serve as a senior faculty member at the Icahn School of Medicine at Mount Sinai.
“We are very excited about Dr. Safer joining the CTMS,” said David Reich, MD, President and Chief Operating Officer of The Mount Sinai Hospital. “With his innovative approach and re-search experience, Dr. Safer will lead the center, which is one of the few comprehensive transgender medical and surgery centers in the nation, to extraordinary levels of clinical and re-search excellence.”
“There is a massive gap in transgender medical care that needs to be filled,” said Dr. Safer. “The Mount Sinai center will serve as a model of medical care delivery for transgender and gender non-conforming individuals. Mount Sinai’s position as a leading academic medical center will be leveraged to develop programs to train the next generation of physicians in transgender health care.”
In response to the growing need for treatment for transgender individuals, Mount Sinai launched the nation's first transgender surgery and psychiatric medical fellowships in 2017.
Little evidence-based data exist to guide transgender health care decisions. Dr. Safer’s arrival will provide the opportunity for Mount Sinai to establish scientific research iniatives to advance the field.
Dr. Safer was most recently the founding Medical Director of the Center for Transgender Medi-cine and Surgery at Boston Medical Center and Boston University School of Medicine. Dr. Safer earned his medical degree from the University of Wisconsin. He completed his internal medicine residency at Mount Sinai Beth Israel and his endocrinology fellowship at Beth Israel Deaconess Medical Center in Boston.
Dr. Safer is the president of the United States Professional Association for Transgender Health (USPATH) and the steering committee co-chair of the international transgender research consor-tium, TransNet. He also serves on the Global Education Initiative committee for the World Pro-fessional Association for Transgender Health (WPATH), on the Standards of Care revision committee for WPATH, and as a scientific co-chair for WPATH’s international meeting. Dr. Safer was a co-author of the Endocrine Society guidelines for the medical care of transgender patients. In addition, he is a past president of the Association of Specialty Professors, the um-brella organization for leaders in internal medicine subspecialty education, and a former secre-tary-treasurer of the national endocrinology program director organization, the Association of Program Directors in Endocrinology and Metabolism (APDEM).
Dr. Safer’s research focus is on demonstrating the health and quality of life benefits of increased access to care for transgender patients. His current and past sources of funding support include the National Institutes of Health and a number of private foundations.
About the Mount Sinai Health System
Mount Sinai Health System is one of the largest academic medical systems in the New York metro area, with 48,000 employees working across eight hospitals, more than 400 outpatient practices, more than 600 research and clinical labs, a school of nursing, and a leading school of medicine and graduate education. Mount Sinai advances health for all people, everywhere, by taking on the most complex health care challenges of our time—discovering and applying new scientific learning and knowledge; developing safer, more effective treatments; educating the next generation of medical leaders and innovators; and supporting local communities by delivering high-quality care to all who need it.
Through the integration of its hospitals, labs, and schools, Mount Sinai offers comprehensive health care solutions from birth through geriatrics, leveraging innovative approaches such as artificial intelligence and informatics while keeping patients’ medical and emotional needs at the center of all treatment. The Health System includes approximately 9,000 primary and specialty care physicians and 11 free-standing joint-venture centers throughout the five boroughs of New York City, Westchester, Long Island, and Florida. Hospitals within the System are consistently ranked by Newsweek’s® “The World’s Best Smart Hospitals, Best in State Hospitals, World Best Hospitals and Best Specialty Hospitals” and by U.S. News & World Report's® “Best Hospitals” and “Best Children’s Hospitals.” The Mount Sinai Hospital is on the U.S. News & World Report® “Best Hospitals” Honor Roll for 2024-2025.
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