With a new year upon us, we recognize Mount Sinai’s historical milestones. It grounds us in the knowledge that our predecessors’ relentless efforts resulted in discoveries of what was once thought beyond medicine or science. The achievements of the Icahn School of Medicine at Mount Sinai and the Mount Sinai Health System throughout our histories inspire our work to greater heights.
Compiled by J.E. Molly Seegers, Michala Biondi, and Stefana Breitwieser
1824 – 200 years ago
The New York Eye and Ear Infirmary created its Otology Service, the first in the U.S.
1859 – 165 years ago
The Uterine Service (later renamed the Gynecology Service) was formed at Roosevelt Hospital, the first specialty service outside of the Medical and Surgical departments.
1874 – 150 years ago
New York Eye and Ear Infirmary surgeons began charting detailed accounts of their cases (already customary in Europe).
1884 – 140 years ago
The Mount Sinai Hospital Board of Directors approved the creation of “Outdoor Visiting Physicians” which became the District Medical Service. 111 years later in 1995, the Mount Sinai Visiting Doctors Program took up this mantle by providing care to adults who are unable to leave their homes.
1889 – 135 years ago
On December 1st, the Beth Israel Hospital was formed at the founding meeting of the Beth Israel Hospital Association held at 165 East Broadway. Beth Israel’s first physical location, a dispensary, opened in May 1891 between Henry Street and Madison Street, just underneath the Manhattan Bridge.
Daniel Guggenheim, one of seven sons of Meyer Guggenheim, became a Trustee of Mount Sinai Hospital, beginning a family relationship with the institution that persists today.
1899 – 125 years ago
As a result of the rigorous scientific environment, and so that their work would be “utilized in the interest of medical science and art,” Mount Sinai Hospital began publishing special reports describing various studies, statistics, and case summaries. The first volume was 347 pages.
Mount Sinai Hospital purchased four lots on the Southwest corner of Madison Ave and 101st St to build our third and current location. The cost was $140,000.
Roosevelt Hospital opened The Ward for Sick Children in the Accident building at W. 58th St. and Ninth Avenue. Abraham Jacobi, MD, widely known as the “Father of American pediatrics,” originally assumes charge of the ward. He had been on the staff of the Mount Sinai Hospital since 1860.
The New York Eye and Ear Infirmary’s Board of Directors created a Post-Graduate School for Nurses.
St. Luke’s Hospital established a policy of accepting tuberculosis patients. At the time, patients with “incurable” diseases were not accepted in most hospitals.
The pathology museum was founded at Mount Sinai Hospital.
1909 – 115 years ago
Nettie Shapiro, MD joined the house staff at Beth Israel Hospital, the first female member.
1924 – 100 years ago
All Mount Sinai Hospital
The Occupational Therapy Department was inaugurated, primarily for outpatient “mental cases.” Separately, a Therapeutic Kindergarten began, akin to today’s pediatric group therapy. Both began under the Social Service Auxiliary.
Annual Report stated, “intimate contact between the wards of the Hospital and the laboratories exists by virtue of the fact that a large number of the Attending Staff are permanent laboratory associates and assistants.”
Physicians emphasized “one of the most important developments of modern medicine is the study of end results”; requested unified medical records and “a much more elaborate social service organization” to tabulate and analyze. Foretelling the importance of data science.
Insulin was first administered for diabetes treatment. Recently introduced radium treatments numbered 2,798.
The Physiological Chemistry department furnished a trained assistant to take charge of a laboratory recently opened in the pediatric department. This was the first instance of a special research laboratory in one of Mount Sinai Hospital’s clinical departments.
Gertrude Felshin, MD joined the House Staff. For the next 39 years, she simultaneously held appointments in Pediatrics and Gynecology, as well as working as a Research Assistant in several laboratories: Endocrinology, Chemistry, and Pediatrics. Her work bridged the gap before there were obstetrics or reproductive science services.
A radiographic museum was created for teaching and studying roentgenograms (x-rays).
Statistics for the year:
22,407 total patients treated in Hospital and Emergency Ward
5,837 major surgical operations
181,505 consultations in Out-Patient Department
1939 – 85 years ago
St. Luke’s Hospital established the position of Director of Religious Activities. The department was said to have been a model for planning hospital religious departments throughout the country.
1949 – 75 years ago
Mount Sinai Hospital’s Psychiatry Department established an adolescent clinic.
A new clinic to treat congenital heart disease was created at Mount Sinai Hospital.
Roosevelt Hospital established its Division of Psychiatry. New York State invited the Hospital to participate in its Psychiatric Pilot Plan which assigned a psychiatrist to each medical, surgical and specialty division in the hospital and out-patient services for support.
The Poliomyelitis service inaugurated at St. Luke’s Hospital. When NYC’s two contagious diseases hospitals were overwhelmed with patients, St. Luke’s—unique among the city’s voluntary hospitals—accepted and treated the overflow.
1974 – 50 years ago
Mount Sinai Medical Center’s Adolescent Health Center (AHC) was officially opened at 19 E. 101st St as all adolescent services were centralized in one building. It was the largest comprehensive care facility for adolescents in the country.
Mount Sinai Medical Center’s Medical Board amended the by-laws to provide full board membership for the Director of Nursing and the Director of Social Work. Thereby the first women on the Board were Dr. Gail Kuhn Weissman, Director of Nursing, and Dr. Helen Rehr, Director of Social Work.
Division of Neonatology was created by Farrokh Shahrivar, MD at St. Luke’s Hospital.
A private nurse-midwife practice opened at Roosevelt Hospital, ten years after the general nurse-midwife practice was instituted.
St. Luke’s Hospital’s Palliative Care Program was established for terminally ill patients, the majority of whom were cancer patients and later AIDS patients.
St. Luke’s Hospital School of Nursing held its last graduation and closed. During its more than eighty years of existence, over 4,000 women, and a few men, graduated.
1984 – 40 years ago
The Kathryn and Gilbert Miller Health Care Institute for Performing Artists opened at Roosevelt Hospital.
Beth Israel Medical Center created a geriatric psychiatry inpatient program. The New York Eye Trauma Center opened at the New York Eye and Ear Infirmary. Both were the first of their kind in New York City.
The Beth Israel School of Nursing was renamed the Phillips Beth Israel School of Nursing after Seymour Phillips, a member of the School’s Board of Trustees for more than forty years. Members of the Phillips family remain on the Board today.
1989 – 35 years ago
The Peter Krueger Clinic for the Treatment of Immunological Disorders at Beth Israel Medical Center was dedicated on First Ave by Trustee Harvey and Connie Krueger in memory of their son, Peter.
Mount Sinai School of Medicine students first used simulated patients to test clinical practice skills. The School soon received a gift to establish the Charles C., Marietta and Charles A. Morchand Center.
First woman chairman at Mount Sinai School of Medicine, Brenda Shank, MD, Ph.D. was appointed Chairman of Radiotherapy; she changed the department’s name to Radiation Oncology.
In cooperation with The Tokio Marine and Fire Insurance Co. Ltd., Beth Israel Medical Center established a medical service dedicated to Japanese citizens and tourists in the metropolitan area; it included “a bilingual, multidisciplinary medical practice” and was “modeled after Japanese medical protocols” that emphasize preventive medicine and extensive annual examinations.
Both Beth Israel and Mount Sinai were designated as AIDS centers.
1994 – 30 years ago
The Mount Sinai School of Medicine’s Department of Emergency Medicine became operational when Sheldon Jacobson, MD was appointed founding Chairman.
St. Luke’s-Roosevelt Hospital Center opened The Theodore B. Van Itallie Center for Nutrition and Weight Management under the Division of Endocrinology, Metabolism and Nutrition.
Lawrence S. Phillips donated $5 million to name the Zeckendorf Towers’ facility Philips Ambulatory Care Center. The gift commemorated their four generations of service to the Beth Israel Medical Center.
1999 – 25 years ago
Mount Sinai Medical Center purchased Western Queens Community Hospital (formerly Astoria General) for $40 million. With 235 beds, it was renamed The Mount Sinai Hospital of Queens.
Mount Sinai’s Dermatology Department founded the Skin of Color Center, the first of its kind, to focus on the numerous skin conditions which disproportionately affect people of color or require special evaluation techniques and treatments.
The Mount Sinai Medical School’s Department of Preventive Medicine, With the support of the Pew Charitable Trust, established the Center for Children’s Health and the Environment was the “nation’s first academic research and policy center established to examine the links between childhood illness and exposure to toxic pollutants.”
The East Harlem Health Outreach Partnership (EHHOP) clinic was created by Mount Sinai School of Medicine students. The goal was to provide high quality primary and preventative health care at no cost to uninsured residents of East Harlem.
The New York Eye and Ear Infirmary opened the Jorge N. Buxton, MD, Microsurgical Education Center.
2009 – 15 years ago
Roosevelt Hospital’s Headache Institute launched an Adolescent Headache Medicine Program to provide appropriate diagnosis and care for children suffering from migraines.
St. Luke’s-Roosevelt Hospital Center’s Division of Pulmonary Critical Care and Sleep Medicine and the Department of Rehabilitation Medicine opened the Pulmonary Rehabilitation Maintenance Program.
The American Nurses Credentialing Center re-designated Mount Sinai Hospital as a Magnet Award winning hospital, in recognition of superior nursing performance. It was the first full-service New York hospital to be re-designated.
Mount Sinai School of Medicine received a Clinical and Translational Research Award (CTSA) for $34.6 million. Research was conducted under a new centralized, multi- and interdisciplinary structure known as the Mount Sinai Institutes for Clinical and Translational Sciences (now ConduITS).
New York Eye and Ear Infirmary’s Facial Paralysis Rehabilitation Center opened.
Mount Sinai School of Medicine’s Ph.D. program in Clinical Research enrolled its first students. The master’s program was already ongoing.
2014 – 10 years ago
Mount Sinai West and the Mount Sinai Health System created the Kidney Stone Center offering minimally invasive treatment techniques and a holistic approach to prevention, the first such center in New York City.
The Icahn School of Medicine at Mount Sinai’s chapter of the American Medical Women’s Association (AMWA) held its inaugural meeting.
New York Eye and Ear Infirmary of Mount Sinai was the first in the United States to perform a series of autologous temporalis fascia transplants to the vocal fold to restore patients’ voices.
2019 – 5 years ago
Mount Sinai St. Luke’s and Mount Sinai West announced the creation of a new inpatient Addiction Consultation and Evaluation Service (ACES).
SafetyNet, an electronic adverse event reporting system, launched across the Mount Sinai Health System.
Dean Charney announced the creation of a Center for Biomedical and Population Health Informatics, which was co-sponsored by the Department of Population Health Science and Policy and the Scientific Computing group.
Mount Sinai Health System kicked off the Diversity Innovation Hub to address social determinants of health and representation of women and minorities in health care.
The Icahn School of Medicine at Mount Sinai started the Institute for Transformative Clinical Trials to provide translational and clinical researchers throughout the Health System with the interdisciplinary expertise to design, conduct, and analyze innovative clinical trials.
A new research center, The Lipschultz Center for Cognitive Neuroscience within the Nash Family Department of Neuroscience and The Friedman Brain Institute at the Icahn School of Medicine at Mount Sinai, was created to focus on understanding the neural mechanisms of higher cognitive function and apply this knowledge to the diagnosis and treatment of disorders of cognitive function in humans.
The Arthur H. Aufses, Jr. MD Archives is pleased to share that we recently received a 2023 Digitization Project Grant from the Metropolitan New York Library Council (METRO) to digitize a selection of material from the Mount Sinai Beth Israel collection. METRO’s Digitization Project Grant is designed to support digitization projects for METRO members to enhance the quality and accessibility of library and information resources in the metropolitan New York region. The selection for this grant will be the largest body of digitized materials related to Mount Sinai Beth Israel (MSBI) to date.
Packing is underway! Materials will be digitized by a vendor before being returned to the Archives for cataloging.
Selected material spans from across the history of MSBI. Beginning as a form of Jewish mutual aid to care for marginalized workers and their families living in tenements, the hospital grew to treat and research many of the most pressing issues of the time and the history of the hospital is deeply intertwined with that of the neighborhood. Over its 133-year history, this has included caring for the sick during the Influenza Epidemic of 1918; the development of the Methadone Maintenance Treatment Program in the 1960s, one of the first ever methadone clinics; being an early responder in treating and caring for patients during the AIDS crisis in the 1980s; and responding to the present COVID-19 pandemic. The Beth Israel records broadly document the history of the hospital, and the digitization of this material will allow Beth Israel to be more easily included in historical research related to the broader scope of healthcare in metropolitan New York. At the grant period’s end, more than 7,000 pages of material will be newly available through our catalog.
A big thank you to METRO for their support! You can learn more about past grant recipients and their projects here.
Authored by Stefana Breitwieser, Digital Archivist
As we look forward to a new year, I wanted to reflect on Mount Sinai’s remarkable historical milestones, honor our collective past, and celebrate those who make the Icahn School of Medicine and the Mount Sinai Health System what we are so proud of today.
2023 is a banner year as we mark the tenth anniversary of the Mount Sinai Health System’s creation. Among many pivotal moments described below, some highlights include trailblazing women, the evolution of psychological and substance use treatments, several otolaryngology milestones, and ways we have supported each other and our communities.
These milestones only highlight a selection of round number anniversaries.
We have so much to recognize in 2023, and the Arthur H. Aufses, Jr., MD Archives staff will be hard at work providing information and materials to support these celebrations!
1823 – 200 years ago
New York Eye and Ear Infirmary’s Dr. Rodgers travelled to Curaçao at the request of the island’s Rear Admiral Governor, to perform surgery in what might be called ophthalmology’s first international goodwill mission.
1863 – 160 years ago
During the New York City Draft Riots of 1863, one of the “bloodiest race riots in American history,” rioters besieged St. Luke’s Hospital for 48 hours, threatening to set the building on fire as it had received three injured policemen. Founder Reverend William Muhlenberg met an injured rioter brought to the front doors and was able to calm the protestors, who began to disperse.
In the geographic center of the Draft Riots, Jews’ Hospital in New York (later The Mount Sinai Hospital) was “the asylum for their dead and injured. An eventual result for the Hospital was its adoption of the nonsectarianism [sic] which has been its policy ever since.” In caring for riot victims, Jews’ Hospital staff witnessed the particular terror and brutal violence inflicted upon Black people. (see post for further information)
James Henry Roosevelt died, leaving his estate for “the reception and relief of sick and diseased persons, and its permanent endowment…” which then created Roosevelt Hospital.
1873 – 150 years ago
New York Eye and Ear Infirmary’s Throat Department was established, forerunner of the Head and Neck Service.
1898 – 125 years ago
During the Spanish-American War, the hospitals treated troops ill with typhoid and other epidemic diseases. Roosevelt Hospital’s Ward V was turned over to the U.S. Department of War. St. Luke’s Hospital set aside 30 beds. The Mount Sinai Hospital cared for 44.
An Act of the State Legislature of 1897 established a law to give The Mount Sinai Hospital 40 cents per day for each charity patient. Costs were then $1.33 per day, about $33 today.
1913 – 110 years ago
Sophie Rabinoff, MD, became the first female intern on the house staff at Beth Israel Hospital after “triumphing over thirty men in a competitive examination.” Initially told by the hospital that women are not eligible for appointment, the hospital later agreed to allow her to sit for the examination, at which she came in first place.
1923 – 100years ago
The Mount Sinai Hospital’s Medical Board recommended, and Board approved that “patients suffering from mental disturbance … as well as those suffering from the minor psychoses and from functional nervous trouble, may be admitted to the Neurological Service.”
Mount Sinai Hospital statistics for 1923: 12,104 patients treated; average census 505; length of stay 15.7 days; days of care 183,863; average daily cost of ward patient $5.64; 8,261 ER visits.
Leila C. Knox, MD, became the first female Attending Physician of any level at St. Luke’s Hospital. Hired in 1913 as an assistant and bacteriologist, she retired in 1948 as Pathologist, Director of Laboratories and Associate Attending Physician, and was recognized for her work as a tissue diagnostician.
1938 – 85 years ago
Mount Sinai Hospital’s Robert T. Frank, MD published an article The Formation of an Artificial Vagina Without Operation in the American Journal of Obstetrics and Gynecologyon his non-surgical vaginoplasty technique to create or enlarge a vagina. He had been working on the subject for many years and had published in 1927 an article advocating for non-surgical methods with Dr. S.H. Geist.
1948 – 75 years ago
Beth Israel’s Obstetrics and Gynecology Departments are merged into a single department; Dr. Henry C. Falk was Director.
The residency program in Urology at Beth Israel was approved by the American Medical Association and the American Board of Urology.
The Mount Sinai Hospital welcomed its first residents in Psychiatry.
The Mount Sinai Hospital’s Special Medical Clinic, an outpatient diagnostic center, was established for lower income patients, paid half of consultation service fees.
1953 – 70 years ago
Woman’s Hospital officially merged with St. Luke’s becoming Woman’s Hospital Division of St. Luke’s Hospital. Established in 1855, Woman’s Hospital was the result of a meeting of thirty-five influential New York City women gathered by Dr. J. Marion Sims who conveyed New York’s need for a hospital to treat gynecological diseases.
1958 – 65 years ago
Doris L. Wethers, MD, began working at St. Luke’s Hospital. The first Black Attending Physician, she was Director of Pediatrics from 1974 until 1979, when she became the principal investigator on a major research project studying sickle cell anemia. She also served as chairwoman of an NIH panel that recommended routine testing for newborns regardless of race or ethnicity.
1973 – 50 years ago
St. Luke’s-Roosevelt’s Smithers Alcoholism Center and Rehabilitation Unit opened (now the Addiction Institute of New York). Funded by R. Brinkley Smithers, who pledged a $10-million gift for the treatment and rehabilitation of alcoholics in 1971, it was the largest single grant ever made by an individual or agency, including the Federal Government, to address alcoholism.
United States Senator Walter Mondale held hearings on child abuse at Roosevelt Hospital; the following year, Mondale initiated the Child Abuse Prevention and Treatment Act.
Mount Sinai’s Department of Community Medicine received a grant to develop a primary care health services system for the children of East Harlem. The program later served as a model for other urban settings.
Phillips Beth Israel School of Nursing admitted its first male student.
Mount Sinai School of Medicine held its first classes in the Annenberg Building; the rest of the building opened slowly floor by floor after this.
1988 – 35 years ago
Beth Israel Medical Center establishes a 12-bed inpatient unit for AIDS care.
An AIDS unit at the Roosevelt Division site opened, providing 25 beds and augmented the St. Luke’s site AIDS unit which had 24 beds.
1993 – 30 years ago
A Letter of Agreement was signed formalizing the affiliation of Astoria General Hospital (predecessor of Mount Sinai Queens) and The Mount Sinai Medical Center.
Beth Israel created the Alfred and Gail Engelberg Department of Family Medicine and a residency program, the first in a Manhattan hospital, in conjunction with the Institute for Family Health (IFH), led by co-founder Dr. Neil Calman. IFH later affiliated with Mount Sinai and created the Department of Family Medicine and Community Health at the Icahn School of Medicine.
For the first time, the Mount Sinai School of Medicine graduated more women than men, also a first in New York State.
Women faculty members of Mount Sinai School of Medicine formed the Women Faculty group to address issues of concern to the including pay equity, discrimination, participation by women in internal decision-making bodies, limitations on career advancement, parenting and schedule flexibility issues, and the underlying sexism that informs these issues.
Beatrice and Samuel A. Seaver Center for Research and Treatment of Autism created in The Mount Sinai Hospital’s Department of Psychiatry.
1998 – 25 years ago
Center for Multi-Cultural and Community Affairs (CMCA) was established to increase underrepresented minority groups in medicine, adding to the diversity of the School and the Hospital, and to Mount Sinai’s effectiveness in serving the ethnically and racially diverse communities of East Harlem, Harlem, the Bronx, Queens, and the rest of New York City. Positioned as the interface for educational pipeline programs such as CEYE and SETH, Minority Affairs, institution-wide diversity initiatives, academic supports for medical students, and other initiatives within the School of Medicine, it was founded under the leadership of Gary Butts, MD in the Department of Medical Education.
His Holiness the Dalai Lama visited Beth Israel and participated in a conference at the Hyman-Newman Institute for Neurology and Neurosurgery called “Researching the Health Actions of Advanced Meditation: A Landmark East/West Medical Conference.” The conference was co-convened by Tibet House and Beth Israel Medical Center with the participation of Columbia University.
The James P. Mara Center for Lung Diseases was dedicated at Roosevelt Hospital. Gerard M. Turino, MD is the founding director; funded by $2 million donation from The Carson Family Charitable Trust.
Mount Sinai School of Medicine students organized the first memorial service for cadavers used in gross anatomy class.
Announcement of establishment of the Mount Sinai-NYU Medical Center and Health System.
Continuum Health Partners, Inc. was selected as new name for Beth Israel and St. Luke’s-Roosevelt parent company.
2003 – 20 years ago
Dr. Kenneth Davis, Chairman of Psychiatry, officially becomes Dean of the Mount Sinai School of Medicine, and the Board subsequently approved Davis as President.
Master’s program in Community Medicine changed from that of a Master of Science degree to a Master of Public Health (MPH) degree.
2008 – 15 years ago
The Brain Institute was created (now Friedman Brain Institute). Eric Nestler, MD, PhD became the first Director when he joined Mount Sinai to become the Chairman of the Fishberg Department of Neuroscience.
The Ear Institute at NYEE opened, which centralized the ear specialty services of New York Eye and Ear Infirmary, Beth Israel Medical Center, and the Children’s Hearing Institute.
2013 – 10 years ago
On September 30th, the approval and official creation of the Mount Sinai Health System was announced, and the Board was considered formed. Press release stated: “The Mount Sinai Health System is an integrated health system committed to providing distinguished care, conducting transformative research, and advancing biomedical education.”
Icahn School of Medicine announced the formation of a new group, Women in Science and Medicine.
2018 – 5 years ago
Boards of Trustees of South Nassau Communities Hospital and the Mount Sinai Health System formally approved an affiliation agreement.
Mount Sinai Heart opened a new ambulatory practice at Mount Sinai St. Luke’s. The Center for Clinical Cardiovascular Care at Mount Sinai Heart offered a suite of specialty services for comprehensive and integrated cardiovascular patient care, including Cardiology, Cardiac Surgery, and Vascular Surgery, in one location.
Additionally, the following departments, institutes, committees, centers, collaborations, and other initiatives have reached a landmark year:
30 years
Department of Emergency Medicine in the Mount Sinai School of Medicine (Academic Department)
25 years
Center for Multicultural and Community Affairs
Minimally Invasive Surgery Center (MISC)
Wound Care Center
Diabetes Center
20 years
Jo Carole and Ronald S. Lauder Center for Maternity Care
15 years
Brain Institute (now the Friedman Brain Institute)
Experimental Therapeutics Institute (now the Drug Discovery Institute)
Translational and Molecular Imaging Institute (now the BioMedical Engineering and Imaging Institute)
Diabetes, Obesity, and Metabolism Institute
Minority Health Research Committee
Statistical Advisory Service
Office of Clinical Research
Office for Women’s Careers
Patient-Oriented Research Training and Leadership (PORTAL) program
Ten years
OCD, Tic Disorders, and Tourette’s Disorder Team
Mount Sinai Health Network
East Harlem Health Outreach Project (EHHOP) Advisory Board
Center for Advanced Circuit Therapeutics (now the Nash Family Center)
Affiliation with Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute
Authored by J.E. Molly Seegers with research contributions for Mount Sinai Morningside and Mount Sinai West by Michala Biondi and for Mount Sinai Beth Israel by Stefana Breitwieser
The Aufses Archives staff has installed our latest exhibit in the lobby of the Annenberg Building. This season’s exhibit, Pediatric Developments, showcases the evolution of children’s medical care over the last two centuries in the histories of our Health System’s hospitals. This blog post focuses only on the Mount Sinai Hospital histories presented in the exhibit.
Appointment card, 1917
While the prevailing narrative is that the field of pediatrics slowly grew into a medical specialty in the early 20th century, the care provided at our hospitals was ahead of the curve with early establishment of wards and services tailored specifically to children. Our doctors and health care workers sought to treat not only the serious and often fatal childhood ailments (many now preventable through routine vaccination), but worked to improve living conditions, nutrition, education, psychology, and convalescence while contributing to the development of Pediatrics as a specialty.
150 years ago, Mount Sinai Hospital established an “Outdoor Dispensary” for patients who did not need to be admitted overnight. This was due to the advocacy of Dr. Abraham Jacobi, the progenitor of Pediatrics, who was a foundational force from his appointment in 1860 to the Jews’ Hospital as Attending Physician, until his death in 1919. Children had always been admitted to the Hospital, but they were placed on adult wards.
In 1875, a Children’s Department in the Mount Sinai Hospital Dispensary was organized with Dr. Mary Putnam Jacobi serving as head of the service. Together, the Drs. Jacobi had published Infant Diet in 1874 and married several months later. Because the facilities for children in the Dispensary were not sufficient to care for the great number referred to the Hospital, an inpatient Pediatric ward was opened in 1879 with Dr. Abraham Jacobi as Chief. Remarkably this was the first inpatient pediatric department in New York City.
Excerpt from 1877 Annual Report
135 years ago in 1887, Dr. Sara Welt was the first woman to be appointed an Adjunct Pediatrician. She spent her whole career at Mount Sinai Hospital and remained closely affiliated until her death in 1943, at which time she bequeathed nearly $1 million to support the Pediatric Clinic and establish the Sara Welt Fellowship in Research Medicine, a loan fund for young physicians who needed financial assistance.
Mount Sinai Hospital Annual Report, 1895
Dr. Ira Wile, who joined the Mount Sinai Hospital Pediatric staff in 1904, developed an early interest in child psychiatry, behavioral and social problems of children, and child education. In 1919, he opened the first child guidance clinic in the United States. Named the Children’s Health Class, it became the first vehicle through which preventive medicine was integrated on an equal footing with the rest of the pediatric activities of the Hospital. He stated, prophetically, that “the attention of the clinic is directed chiefly to the periodic examination of children between infancy and school age. This is a period during which the health of poorer children is commonly neglected, and when physical and psychological mismanagement may readily implant the seeds of disease against which the Department of Health and other agencies subsequently struggle in vain.”
Children in Einstein Falk Pavilion, circa 1923
In 1889, Dr. Henry Koplik founded the first station for the distribution of sterilized milk in New York City at the Good Samaritan Dispensary in lower Manhattan. In 1896, Koplik described the diagnostic spots of measles in the buccal mucous membranes, which to this day bear the name “Koplik spots.” He was one of the first pediatricians to take an interest in bacteriology and conducted fundamental studies on diphtheria and pertussis organisms. In 1902, he assumed the coveted role of Attending Pediatrician at Mount Sinai Hospital. For the next 25 years, he served on the Medical Board, taught at the School of Nursing, and was a consulting expert on Pediatrics.
Diet Manual, 1939
In 1923, Mount Sinai Hospital invited Dr. Béla Schick, a pediatrician of renown in Europe, to come to Mount Sinai and serve as Pediatrician to the Hospital. In collaboration with Dr. Clemens von Pirquet, Schick had already conducted his groundbreaking work on antigen/antibody reactions, which laid the foundation for immunity and hypersensitivity. They introduced the term “allergy.” Schick also had done his pioneering studies on diphtheria, developing a skin test with toxin from diphtheria organisms. The “Schick Test” was the first of many skin tests used to determine whether a child was immune or susceptible. In his later years Dr. Schick also focused on infant and child nutrition, as evidenced by this Diet Manual from 1939.
Dr. Jean Pakter, pictured, spent five years at Mount Sinai Hospital, finishing her residency in 1939. An advocate for maternal and child health, she devoted her life to serving not only the City of New York, as Director of the Department of Health’s Bureau of Maternity Services and Family Planning from 1960 to 1982, but the nation as well. Her discipline for gathering and sharing statistics led to many noteworthy studies on prematurity, maternal and fetal mortality, abortion, sudden infant death syndrome, and promotion of breast feeding. Her Mount Sinai training of using scientific study and clinical expertise as a means of enacting social change led deservedly to numerous honors, awards, and citations, most notably in the Roe v. Wade decision.
Polio, measles, mumps, rubella, diphtheria, tetanus, pertussis… many of the serious and often fatal childhood ailments that were common in the nascent years of the field of Pediatrics are today prophylactically addressed through routine childhood vaccinations. One of the most notable vaccines was for polio, released in 1955. Developed by Dr. Jonas Salk, who interned at Mount Sinai Hospital from 1940-1942, the evaluation of the vaccine was conducted by pioneering Black scientists, Russell W. Brown and James H.M. Henderson at Tuskegee Institute, by creating the first HeLa cell factory.
This casebook entry from 1910 shows a child being treated for poliomyelitis, bronchopneumonia, and scoliosis. While this child was discharged with their conditions improved, the case book is filled with patients seen by Dr. Henry Koplik and Dr. Burrill Crohn (listed as Attending and House Staff above) who succumbed to illnesses that are preventable today.
Mount Sinai Hospital Ward Y, Pediatric staff with children, 1906
We welcome you to visit the exhibit in person to read about the histories of Mount Sinai Morningside, Mount Sinai West, and Mount Sinai Beth Israel.
Since the 2013 merger of the Continuum Health Partners into the Mount Sinai Health System, medical students working in the System’s hospitals have earned their MDs from the Icahn School of Medicine at Mount Sinai. Newer staff and students may be unaware that prior to 2013, the Continuum Health Partners, made up of St. Luke’s-Roosevelt Hospital, Beth Israel Medical Center and the New York Eye and Ear Infirmary, now all a part of Mount Sinai’s System, played host to medical students attached to a different medical school. In fact, from very early days, Roosevelt Hospital and her sister institution, St. Luke’s Hospital, were associated with Columbia University’s College of Physicians and Surgeons (P&S), though Roosevelt’s ties are closer. How did this come to be exactly?
In 1885, P&S was located on East 23rd Street and Fourth Avenue, now known as Park Avenue South. William H. Vanderbilt, an American businessman and philanthropist, died in December of that year. He left a legacy of $300K and a plot of land on West 59th Street between Ninth and Tenth Avenues to P&S for the express purpose of building a new medical school, the largest donation to a medical school up to that time.
The College of Physicians and Surgeons on West 59th Street across from Roosevelt Hospital. You can see the Hospital’s Administrative Building port-cohere front column to the left in the image. (Photo source: Archives & Special Collections, Columbia University Irving Medical Center.
It just so happened that the Roosevelt Hospital, which had opened its doors several years earlier, was across the street from the new building. Of the twelve physicians chosen to be the first clinical staff of the Hospital, almost all of them were P&S alumni and held teaching positions there. It probably was no surprise to the staff to see medical students from P&S coming over to observe their professors’ clinics and surgeries.
By 1914, P&S students received bedside teaching on patient wards; by 1936, fourth-year students were allowed into the operating rooms. In 1928, the College of Physicians and Surgeons moved to the newly constructed medical center campus at 168 Street in Washington Heights, but their students continued to travel to clinical training at Roosevelt, and a number of other hospitals in the area.
Surprisingly, in over sixty years of P&S student training at Roosevelt Hospital, there was only a ‘handshake’ agreement between the medical school and the Hospital. However, by the late 1940s, there was discussion on the subject, and on October 24, 1951, the Board of Trustees put into place a formal affiliation with Columbia University’s College of Physicians and Surgeons, allowing the students of the medical school to work at the hospital as part of their formal training. The agreement was signed by all parties on May 12, 1952. In 1971 it was renewed and expanded.
Medical studies aren’t the only tie between Columbia and Roosevelt Hospital, however. In 1964, an affiliation agreement between Columbia University’s School of Dental and Oral Surgery and Roosevelt Hospital was signed allowing dental students in to the surgery. That same year a two-year program in anesthesiology for the registered nurses was established at Roosevelt to help end the shortage of practitioners in this area. This program moved to Columbia University’s School of Nursing after the Roosevelt Hospital’s School of Nursing closed, and the loose ends of Roosevelt’s program merged with Columbia’s. The CRNA program – Certified Registered Nurse Anesthetists – continues there to this day.
With the 2013 merger of St. Luke’s-Roosevelt Hospital Center into the Mount Sinai Health System, ties to Columbia University’s programs may have come undone, but the history and influence of each institution upon the other remains, in the drive to produce outstanding medical professionals.
