Albert Einstein College of Medicine

Medical Education: Albert Einstein College of Medicine is the University Hospital for Montefiore Health serving the 3.1 million people living in the New York City region and the Hudson Valley. The College is a premier, research-intensive medical school dedicated to leading biomedical investigation and the development of ethical and compassionate physicians and scientists. In 1955, Einstein was founded as the only medical institution upon which Albert Einstein bestowed the honor of his name. Our name stake, Albert Einstein, desired that a medical school bearing his name "welcome students of all races and creedssince the inception, the College has been committed to enrolling students who are racially, ethnically and socio-economically diverse. Since than, our alumni have ranked among the nation's foremost clinicians, biomedical scientists and medical educators. Einstein strengthened its ability to thrive as a premier academic institution in 2015 by aligning with Montefiore Medicine via a joint collaboration agreement. Building upon their decades-old partnership, Einstein and Montefiore are furthering the shared core missions of research excellence, outstanding medical education and improved human health. The College M.D. program prepares tomorrow's physicians to excel in both the science and the art of medicine by combining the pursuit of scientific excellence with compassionate and humanistic care and the social mission to improve the human health through engagement in our local, national and global communities. The open and supportive community at Einstein allows for innovation and for pushing the boundaries of what is known and what is practiced. We educate our students to be catalysts for social change. Among its pioneering educational initiatives, Einstein was one of the first major medical schools to integrate bedside experience with learning, bringing first-year students into contact with patients and linking classroom study to case experience. Einstein also led the way in developing bioethics as an accepted academic discipline in medical school curricula, and was the first private medical school in New York city to establish an academic department of family medicine and was the first to create a residency program in internal medicine with an emphasis on women's health. Einstein runs one of the largest residency and fellowship training programs in the medical profession through Montefiore Medical Center and a network of affiliates that includes hospitals and medical centers in metropolitan New York. Each year, for the last decade, well over 95 percent of our students have matched to residencies, with more than a third of students going into the primary-care specialties of internal medicine, pediatrics and family medicine. Our graduates also enter research programs focusing on a broad range of subjects, from traditional disease-oriented investigations in cancer, diabetes and infectious diseases to public health and global medicine. The Ph.D. program trains promising and passionate students to become the next generation of leading scientists. The collaborative culture at Einstein is at the heart of the program. Prospective students apply directly to the Ph.D. program rather than to a specific department, allowing them to explore many areas of research before choosing from among more than 200 laboratories in which to conduct their thesis work. Our interdisciplinary graduate curriculum is known for its high level of personalized mentoring and remarkable student achievement. Einstein's extraordinary graduate experience produces independent biomedical scientists capable of carrying out significant scientific work to improve the health and well-being of humankind. Our Ph.D. program has more than 1,500 graduates employed in a wide range of scientific careers, both in academic and in nonacademic settings worldwide. The Medical Scientist Training Program (MSTP) (resulting in both M.D. and Ph.D. degrees) trains a diverse group of outstanding students as physician-scientists to become future leaders in academic medicine and medical research. Through Einstein's Global Health fellowship program, Einstein students are able to participate in clinical, public health or research experiences in developing nations to order to gain a deeper understanding of how economic and sociocultural factors influence the health of individuals and populations. These students provide much needed medical care and in the process acquire invaluable knowledge about diseases that are unique or especially prevalent in these nations. The Global Health Center boasts many initiatives worldwide, including clinical and research programs in Argentina, Brazil, Burundi, Cameroon, China, Congo, Ethiopia, Guatemala, Haiti, India, Kenya, Malawi, Mexico, Nigeria, Rwanda, South Africa, Uganda and Vietnam. The mission of the Global Health Center is to bring education, research and needed health services to the world, with the ultimate goal of reducing disparities in health and alleviating human suffering. Einstein has always had an interest in providing support for historically underrepresented students. We are committed to developing a broadly diverse cadre of clinicians, researchers and educators who can effectively promote health and address health disparities in our local community, around the nation and abroad. Our office of diversity enhancement aims to establish and maintain an environment that celebrates diversity; emphasizes professionalism and excellence; and promotes and nurtures future leaders in medicine and research. Einstein reaches out to students in the Bronx and beyond - particularly to students from underrepresented minorities - with a variety of programs designed to motivate these students in pursuing careers in Medicine, building self-confidence, advancing their leadership skills and fostering mentor relationships.

Research: While education is at the heart of Einstein's mission, it is biomedical research that drives the College of Medicine's growth. Over the past 60 years, Einstein has become a premier biomedical research institution in this region of New York City, with its scientific enterprise ranked consistently in the top 25 percent of medical schools receiving NIH funding in the last decade. Einstein is home to many NIH-funded research multidisciplinary research centers - in diabetes, intellectual and developmental disorders, aging, liver diseases, health disparities, HIV/AIDS, cardiovascular research, organ transplantation and cancer - and it also provides an extensive array of translational research cores, including tissue analysis; multiscale imaging; molecular design; and genetic and genomic, proteomic and human phenotyping. Our Strategic Plan focuses on areas where we can significantly advance science and improve human health. Our aim is to develop robust multidisciplinary research programs for adult and pediatric patients, with particular emphases in six areas: brain science; immunotherapeutics; obesity and metabolic disorders; cancer; healthcare delivery and clinical effectiveness; and RNA science and medicine. Concurrently we are advancing our Center for Experimental Therapeutics, providing researchers with resources to pursue promising experimental projects with the goal of discovering new and better therapies. Long a national leader in biomedical research support from the Federal government, Einstein received $202 million in funding from the National Institutes of Health during 2022. Much of our research is conducted in the Michael F. Price Center for Genetic and Translational Medicine/Harold and Muriel Block Research Pavilion, one of the newest, largest and "greenest" biomedical research facilities in the New York area. Einstein operates eight NIH Health & Human Services-designated centers: the Albert Einstein Cancer Center, Center for Aids research, Diabetes research center, the Harold and Muriel Block Institute for Clinical and Translational Research at Einstein and Montefiore (ICTR), Institute for Aging Research, the Marion Bessin Liver Research Center, New York Regional Center for Diabetes Translation Research, and the Rose F. Kennedy Intellectual and Developmental Disabilities Research Center. As an engine for research collaboration, the NIH-funded ICTR has been a key factor in formally alligning Einstein and Montefiore with a shared mission. The ICTR is at the leading edge in comparative effectiveness, informatics, population health and lifespan research innovation. Our investment in research has translated into improved human health. Einstein's relationship with Montefiore supports a longstanding focus on bench-to-bedside research, through which discoveries in Einstein's laboratories lead to therapies and treatments for patients on an accelerated timetable. In the last decade, Einstein researchers were the first to show that low scores on a cancer-recurrence gene test may allow breast cancer patients to skip chemotherapy. We linked a child's abnormal breathing during sleep with behavioral, emotional and relationship troubles; discovered that slow walking speed plus memory complaints are predictors of dementia; created a prototype vaccine against tuberculosis that works better in animal models than the current TB vaccine; and discovered "longevity genes" in humans. Among our many ongoing initiatives are studies of healthcare-associated infections in children in ambulatory care settings and research on HIV eradication and the use of PrEP (pre-exposure prophylaxis) to reduce the risk of contracting HIV. Einstein is currently one of just four sites nationwide taking part in a large-scale study of the health status of the Hispanic/Latino community in the Bronx, supported by the NIH.