Mark W. Babyatsky, MD Named Chair of Department of Medicine at The Mount Sinai Medical Center

New York, NY (Vocus) December 13, 2010

Mark W. Babyatsky, MD, an experienced educator and international leader in medical genomics, has been appointed Chair of the Department of MedicineThe Mount Sinai Medical Center. During his 16-year career at Mount Sinai, Dr. Babyatsky has served as Program Director of the Internal Medicine Residency Program, and Vice Chair of Education for the Department of Medicine. His appointment became official on September 1.

In his new role, Dr. Babyatsky hopes to further Mount Sinai’s mission supporting exceptional patient care, research, and education. He plans to work closely with Mount Sinai’s 16 translational research institutes and wants to propel Mount Sinai to the forefront of improving primary care under the new Affordable Care Act.

“National health care reform will make primary care a critical focus of internal medicine,” said Dr. Babyatsky. “I want to help Mount Sinai lead in health care policy, institute new primary care training programs, recruit more clinicians, and establish off-site practices that are allied with Mount Sinai.”

In addition to his commitment to patient care, Dr. Babyatsky is a leader in the emerging field of medical genomics, co-authoring the first textbook on the subject for primary care physicians, students, and other trainees. As a researcher, Dr. Babyatsky revealed some of the critical roles played by a novel family of trefoil proteins in gastrointestinal inflammation.

Dr. Babyatsky has received numerous honors, including awards from the Glaxo Institute for Digestive Health, a Crohn’s and Colitis Foundation of America First Award, and membership in the American College of Physicians. Dr. Babyatsky received the Cleveland Clinic Educational Foundation Teaching Excellence Award in 2006.

“As Program Director of the Internal Medicine Residency Program, and Vice Chair of Education, Dr. Babyatsky took a good program and made it great, one that is widely considered to be among the best in the nation,” says Dennis S. Charney, MD, Anne and Joel Ehrenkranz Dean, Mount Sinai School of Medicine, Executive Vice President for Academic Affairs, The Mount Sinai Medical Center. “We are confident that he is going to bring this same dedication to supporting individual faculty members in his new role, helping each one reach his or her full potential.”    

The department Dr. Babyatsky leads includes 14 elected members of the Association of American Physicians and 22 of the American Society of Clinical Investigators. New York Magazine listed 32 Department of Medicine physicians in its “Best Doctors” issue in 2010. In U.S. News & World Report’s “Best Hospitals” issue, six medicine specialties were ranked including cancer, digestive disorders, heart and heart surgery, kidney disease, and for the first time, diabetes and endocrinology and respiratory disorders.

The department received $71 million from the National Institutes of Health in 2008, placing it among the top 20 departments of medicine in the country. Medicine faculty members were part of the effort that established Mount Sinai as a member of the federal Clinical and Translational Science Award Consortium, resulting in a $34.6 million grant to Mount Sinai School of Medicine.
Dr. Babyatsky’s ties to Mount Sinai go back nearly three decades, when he served as Chief Resident at Mount Sinai in the late 1980s. From there, he went on to serve as a research fellow and clinical fellow at Harvard Medical School and Massachusetts General Hospital, respectively. Afterwards, he focused on his clinical career, and was recognized by his peers for outstanding achievement and proclaimed “Man of the Year” by the Pamela Beth Deichman Foundation for Crohn’s Disease in 2005. In 2007, Oregon Health Sciences University bestowed The Annual Foundation for Medical Excellence Award upon him and New York Super Doctors has noted his excellence the last three consecutive years.

Dr. Babyatsky succeeds Paul Klotman, MD, who is now President and Chief Executive Officer of Baylor College of Medicine in Houston, Texas.

About The Mount Sinai Medical Center

The Mount Sinai Medical Center encompasses both The Mount Sinai Hospital and Mount Sinai School of Medicine. Established in 1968, Mount Sinai School of Medicine is one of few medical schools embedded in a hospital in the United States. It has more than 3,400 faculty in 32 departments and 15 institutes, and ranks among the top 20 medical schools both in National Institute of Health funding and by U.S. News & World Report. The school received the 2009 Spencer Foreman Award for Outstanding Community Service from the Association of American Medical Colleges.

The Mount Sinai Hospital, founded in 1852, is a 1,171-bed tertiary- and quaternary-care teaching facility and one of the nation's oldest, largest and most-respected voluntary hospitals. U.S. News & World Report consistently ranks The Mount Sinai Hospital among the nation's best hospitals based on reputation, patient safety, and other patient-care factors. Nearly 60,000 people were treated at Mount Sinai as inpatients last year, and approximately 530,000 outpatient visits took place.

For more information, visit http://www.mountsinai.org. Follow us on Twitter @mountsinainyc.

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