Diversity & Inclusion

Education and society are only enhanced by diversity and inclusion. Diversity fosters innovation, is crucial in delivering quality care, helps reduce inequities and contributes to a more just society. NYMC strives to create a learning environment where everyone belongs, and graduate healthcare professionals who can deliver culturally competent compassionate care that is sensitive to the needs of diverse populations. Training a diverse healthcare workforce is key to reducing care inequities and delivering high-quality, patient-centered care.

Our commitment to diversity and inclusion runs deep, from our earliest years, and wide, across curriculum, events, research, programming, and more.

Diversity in Our Curriculum

Diversity and Inclusion is baked into our curriculum. It starts as soon as medical students arrive on campus with implicit bias training and continues through to fourth year, when med students take a multiculturalism in medicine course that is a deep dive into recognizing problems and coming up with solutions. Throughout there are courses, and opportunities, to broaden understanding, identify issues and their solutions. We review our curriculum to identify any bias within it, and make sure it’s free of racism, sexism, and other ‘isms’.

A Diverse Student Body, Faculty, and Staff

Creating an inclusive environment means welcoming diverse students to our campus and making every effort to ensure their success here and throughout their careers. We offer tutorial services, career and financial counseling, personal guidance, and more, all designed to support an inclusive student body.

Similarly, with faculty and staff recruitment and retention, we want to ensure that underrepresented candidates and employees have every opportunity for advancement. We welcome feedback and questions as we continue to improve.

Cultural Landscape

Our commitment to diversity and inclusion encompasses our Jewish observance and culture. In 2011, NYMC became a member of Touro University System, chartered in 1970 to serve the American community and enrich the Jewish heritage. We strive to provide an environment where all students can become well-rounded health care leaders, while fulfilling both their professional and personal commitments. We acknowledge and embrace our rich diversity and continue to work towards protecting the diversity, equity, and inclusion that extends to all members of the greater NYMC community on and off campus.

Diversity Programming, Events & Resources

We regularly run events from mixers to conferences, and work with student organizations, to promote inclusion and educate on diversity. We provide leadership training to address bias and racism in medicine, and have pathways to medicine including our Pre-Matriculation Program, Pre-Health Enrichment Program, and Medical Linkage Program and identify clerkships for underrepresented students.

HeLa Diversity and Inclusion Conference

The HeLa Diversity and Inclusion Conference sponsored by the NYMC Office of Diversity and Inclusion is held annually. The conference is named for Henrietta Lacks, a Baltimore mother of five, who was diagnosed with cervical cancer and died at the age of 31 in 1951. Her cancer cells—code-named HeLa—were taken without her knowledge and became one of the most important tools in medicine. It was the first immortal cell line, or group of tissue samples that could survive in a lab and reproduce indefinitely, leading to advances such as the polio vaccine, cancer treatments and in vitro fertilization, to name a few. The topic continues to impact research ethics today and fuels discussions on informed consent, privacy and compensation. Read about the 2023 HeLa Diversity and Inclusion Conference.

Recent DEI Activities & Events

Student Organization Partners

The Office of Diversity and Inclusion works with several student organizations on campus to promote diversity and inclusion, among them are:

• American Medical Women's Association (AMWA)
• Asian Pacific American Medical Student Association (APAMSA)
• Association of Military Surgeons of the US
• Building the Next Generation of Academic Physicians (BNGAP)
• Catholic Medical Association
• Christian Medical and Dental Association
• Diversity Mentorship Program
• Jewish Student Association
• Latino Medical Students Association (LMSA)
• LGBTQ Advocacy in Medicine Club
• Muslim Student Association
• South Asian Medical Student Association (SAMSA)
• Student National Medical Association (SNMA)
• Women in Medicine

This includes participation in student club activities and club programming to encourage an inclusive learning environment.

For descriptions of student partner organizations visit NYMC’s Student Organizations page.

To learn more about some of the programs we have to promote diversity go to our Diversity Department page or call 914-594-3881.