Our Mission

Our Mission Statement:

• Minority faculty and house staff recruitment
• Mentoring and networking for minority house staff
• Cross-cultural education
• Community outreach

In deciding on a residency, one of the first things that attracted me to CPMC, besides the opportunity for well-balanced, superior training, was the vast diversity of its physicians, not just in the Department of Medicine but throughout the hospital. CPMC has a rich and storied history throughout the 20th century of training physicians of color, including Dr. Charles Drew in 1940. Today Columbia University ’s College of Physicians and Surgeons can boast having the most faculty members from underrepresented minority group of any medical school in the United States, and you appreciate this feat as soon as you enter the medical center. It’s one of many reasons I enjoyed my residency here and why I stayed on as faculty. Interacting with surgeons, neurologists, and gynecologists of color, to name a few, (senior attendings no less) on a daily basis, along with my own colleagues in medicine has been a true, and relatively unique, privilege. It underscores the necessity of having a house staff and faculty that reflects the patient population that we serve, which here in Washington Heights, is predominantly Black and Latino. This rare combination has translated into an incredibly intellectually stimulating and personally rewarding experience for me.

 Will Turner, MD