Two innovative programs are on the horizon at New York Medical College (NYMC) thanks to recent federal funding. A $1,900,000 award from the Community Project Fund will support “Equity and Compassion in Medical Education Through Advanced Real-Time Simulations” and $825,000 of Congressionally directed spending will help launch the Women’s Institute for Science Entrepreneurship (WISE).
Sponsored by Congressman Mondaire Jones and appropriated by the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services, Health Resources and Services Administration, Health Facilities Construction and Equipment, the $1,900,000 award for “Equity and Compassion in Medical Education Through Advanced Real-Time Simulations” will be used for programming and educational tools in the Clinical Skills and Simulation Center and the Center for Disaster Medicine to ensure equity and inclusiveness.
The project will advance critically needed equity and compassion in the education and training of physicians and other health professionals by challenging them with demanding real-time scenarios in health care. Students and residents will be faced with patient encounters specifically engineered to teach and test their ability to recognize patients’ issues that go deeper than the health problems they report. Mock patients, ethnically diverse and portrayed by professional actors in character or by sophisticated hi-fidelity mannequins, may initially conceal food insecurity, unemployment or disordered personal relationships, to teach students to probe and investigate with the same intensity as they would initially direct a physical ailment or pain. Simulations of community-wide emergencies, such as severe weather, mass transit accident, active shooter event or pandemic, will be conducted to advance the level of preparedness, situational awareness and rapid responsiveness required of every healthcare professional in modern times. Health professionals serving equity-impacted communities will also benefit from expanded learning environments that impart new competencies in managing a full complement of both typical health problems and inevitable community emergencies.
The Women’s Institute for Science Entrepreneurship is a program designed to support women innovators in cultivating new scientific concepts and launching new businesses that will make a significant difference in their communities and in the world as well as encourage them to pursue STEM education and research. WISE draws upon faculty and students at NYMC, Touro University (TU) and BioInc@NYMC and will connect interdisciplinary teams of students, researchers, faculty and biotech entrepreneurs on and off campus to work collaboratively, creating synergy to lead to pioneering and exceptional projects.
The $825,000 award for WISE was sponsored by Senator Kirsten Gillibrand and appropriated by the U.S. Department of Commerce, National Institute of Standards and Technology, Scientific and Technical Research Services.
“We are grateful to the U.S. Congress for supporting our mission of empowering women in science and encouraging the entrepreneurial spirit,” said Marina K. Holz, Ph.D., dean of the Graduate School of Biomedical Sciences, professor of cell biology and anatomy, director of the Integrated Ph.D. Program, interim chair of the Department of Biochemistry and Molecular Biology, who will serve as director of WISE. “Interventions that create a path for women in science to become business leaders are most effective when introduced early in their educational and professional careers, and this program will robustly promote this goal.”
“This recognition by the U.S. Congress ennobles our 162-year-old institution and advances its historic mission,” said Robert W. Amler, M.D., M.B.A., vice president for government affairs and dean of the School of Health Sciences and Practice. “These innovative educational approaches will instill new reality-based skills in future healthcare professionals for many years to come and will bring new vitality to the growing ranks of women as science entrepreneurs.”
