Interview:
Dean Arthur Rubenstein, Mt. Sinai School of Medicine A
Curricular Face-Lift at Mount Sinai
by
Jacob M. Appel
For
years the faculty at the Mount Sinai School of Medicine thought
of their 33-year old institution as young, at least in relation
to the 149-year old Mount Sinai Hospital. Arthur H. Rubinstein
felt otherwise.
When he became Dean of the Medical School in 1997, he launched
a program that transformed the Upper East Side institution from
one of the city’s most traditional medical programs into one of
the most innovative. He managed to harness faculty support for
an overhaul of the curriculum and a revitalization of the school’s
approach to medical education—an effort that has rejuvenated Mount
Sinai to the youth it had already thought it possessed.
“This
was a very good school when I arrived,” Rubinstein explains, “but
a very traditional one. There were warm student-faculty relations
and students had access to the board of trustees.” Yet only modest
changes had been made in the curriculum. “Meanwhile, around the
country medical schools were being changed,” he continues. “It
was happening at Harvard and UCSF and a variety of smaller schools
like Southern Illinois. I felt we needed that here as well.”
Rubinstein instituted a curriculum review to assess such challenges
as the integration of basic science courses with clinical training,
the role of electronic media in the classroom and the possibility
of integrating interdisciplinary training. The faculty responded
with changes that have since drastically reshaped the Mount Sinai
student’s experience.
One of the Dean’s goals has been to emphasize the importance of
the physician as a teacher. “Most members of the faculty are either
here because they’re great clinicians or because they’re talented
researchers,” he explains. “It has never been a high priority
to hire great teachers. We assume naively that just because a
man is a great cardiologist, for example, he’ll be a great educator.
Many medical schools never bother to emphasize teaching, but I
think it’s essential that we do.”
Rubinstein has set up a program under Associate Dean Patricia
McCardle with the primary purpose of faculty development. “Most
faculty are very eager for it,” he says. We’re received very positive
feedback.”
Another focus of Rubinstein’s tenure has been upon the relationship
between the medical school and the local community, particularly
the working class neighborhoods of East Harlem that border the
campus to the north. “From my point of view, the best an academic
medical center can offer its students is interaction with a variety
of patients so the students see as much of the society at large
as possible. How can you understand HIV, wounds from violence
or behaviorally sensitive conditions like diabetes if you do all
of your training in a middle class or wealthy white community?
We have a tradition of taking care of local people. That’s one
of the real benefits, the real beauties of this place.”
How did such an innovative thinker come to his profession? By
quite traditional methods, it seems. “My father came from Europe,”
Rubinstein explains. “He always wanted to be a physician but he
was only able to become a pharmacist. His whole life he told me
what a wonderful profession medicine was. So when I came of age
and started to wonder what I’d do with my life, he said, ‘I think
you’re going to be a doctor, aren’t you?’ And I’ve never regretted
that decision. Not once.”
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