Teaching Tomorrow's Medicine Today: The Mount Sinai School of Medicine, 1963-2003

The Graduate School of Biological Sciences

3 The Graduate School of Biological Sciences Terry Ann Krulwich, Ph.D.* THE GRADUATE SCHOOL of Biological Sciences currently encompasses the Ph.D., the M.D./Ph.D. (the Medical Scientist Training Program [MSTP]), the Summer Undergraduate Research Programs (SURP), and the Post-Baccalaureate Research Education Program (PREP). In the beginning, however, it was a far more modest undertaking, but one with lofty goals that made it essential to the new Mount Sinai School of Medicine. THE PH.D. PROGRAM One of the goals in the establishment of the Mount Sinai School of Medicine (MSSM) was to position the institution to maintain the tradition of important, innovative research that had been a hallmark of The Mount Sinai Hospital during the years when clinical, observational, and pathological studies had been prime. Following World War II, more and more medical research emanated from university and medical 91 * Terry Ann Krulwich, Ph.D., is the Sharon and Frederick A. KlingensteinNathan G. Kase Professor in the Department of Pharmacology and Biological Sciences. She was Executive Officer of the Ph.D. Program and the founding Director of the M.D./Ph.D. Program (the Medical Scientist Training Program, MSTP) from 1973 to 1999 and Dean of the Graduate School of Biological Sciences from 1981 to 2002. See also chapter 4, on the basic sciences. school laboratories. Biology was beginning to move into the molecular age. By the late 1950s, it became apparent that a stand-alone hospital setting could no longer sustain the level of research activity required to nourish and to build upon this heritage. In this new era, even a hospital with a remarkable history of contributions in biomedicine now required a critical mass of basic scientists, along with their predoctoral graduate students and postdoctoral fellows, to maintain its cuttingedge capabilities. It was also evident that basic scientists were indispensable to the education of medical students. In turn, their attraction to Mount Sinai and the ultimate quality of their research activities in newly emerging areas of science would depend upon their opportunity to collaborate with research-oriented medical students, residents, fellows , and clinician-scientists. This symbiotic relationship would facilitate the identification of problems of biomedical importance and maximize the likelihood that novel findings would be translated into applications for either disease prevention or therapeutic strategies. It was also clear that the new generation of clinician-scientists wanted the benefit of having excellent predoctoral students in their laboratories, as well as postgraduate M.D. and Ph.D. fellows. Recognizing that it would benefit all segments of the faculty, a Graduate School program, offering basic science training toward the Ph.D. degree, was designed side by side with the planning of the new School of Medicine. It would be a key component of the new School.1 And so, with the granting of the charter by New York State in 1963, the Graduate School of Biological Sciences was established within the School of Medicine. In 1965, Irving Schwartz, M.D., a graduate of the New York University School of Medicine (NYU), was recruited from the University of Cincinnati, where he served as the Chairman of the Department of Physiology, to be the first Dean of the Graduate School of the Biological Sciences. He was also appointed the founding Chairman of MSSM Department of Physiology.2 In an interview shortly after his arrival, Schwartz was enthusiastic about the challenge of developing a new school: I see the graduate school as a key element in creating a top flight medical center and educational institution. . . . The climate created by the presence of outstanding graduate students helps to attract a top-flight faculty of scholars and scientists who need this source of stimulation. In addition, a strong reputation as a research and graduate education 92 TEACHING TOMORROW’S MEDICINE TODAY center brings visitors from all over the world, and it breeds collaborative projects with other excellent institutions. All this escalates the vitality and the quality of the intellectual environment—it creates a gestalt that adds to the research potential and the teaching capacity of the entire institution at all levels.3 Schwartz would later go on to state, “My colleagues and I believe that the best way to develop the atmosphere of a graduate school within a medical school is through the juxtaposition of two such schools physically, operationally and philosophically. . . . We hope to achieve vital interdisciplinary interactions among clinicians, basic scientists, medical...