Mount Sinai’s Icahn School of Medicine Establishes Institutional Partnership With U.S. Navy, Streamlining Pathway for Servicemembers
The program allows provisional acceptance unencumbered by the traditional science requirements and MCAT. To be considered for admission, applicants must be on active duty with the Department of the Navy, which includes the Marines, and hold a bachelor’s degree recognized by the U.S. Department of Education. Candidates admitted into the ISMMS/Department of Navy program are offered provisional acceptance to ISMMS and then may defer their acceptance to continue their military service.
“Military veterans bring maturity, intellect, discipline, resourcefulness, and problem-solving skills that we value tremendously at the Icahn School of Medicine, where a variety of voices is critical to medical education and to the health of our patients,” says David Muller, MD, Dean for Medical Education and Marietta and Charles C. Morchand Chair in Medical Education.
According to Dr. Muller, the Navy pathway provides a mechanism for recruiting servicemen and women while integrating a layer of flexibility to ease the transition from their undergraduate careers. The partnership is a product of the Icahn School of Medicine’s popular FlexMed program, which allows college sophomores to apply for early assurance of acceptance.
1st Lt Chris Bellaire will be the first student to matriculate at the Icahn School of Medicine through the Navy pathway. As an officer transitioning from active duty in the Marine Corps, Lieutenant Bellaire says he feels that medicine is a natural progression of a career spent in service to others. While stationed in Hawaii, Lieutenant Bellaire explored his interest in medicine by volunteering at a local hospital. Later, in 2017, while deployed in Southeast Asia, he saw first-hand the health care consequences of poverty, disease, and conflict. “My commitment to medicine and global health really took off after that experience,” he says. The Icahn School of Medicine’s emphasis on cultivating young doctors with different backgrounds and different voices appealed to him. “When I first read about the Institutional Partnership program, I thought, wow, Mount Sinai has a very inclusive idea of what it means to be a med school student. And I really gravitated to that.”
More information about the Icahn School of Medicine at Mount Sinai, celebrating its 50th anniversary this year, is available online.
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