Dear Ms. Jackson,

We would like to share a great volunteer opportunity with you for students in your program, the Student Research Associates (SRA) Program at Mount Sinai.  This program exist under the oversight of the Department of Emergency Medicine and is currently operated at Mount Sinai St. Luke’s, Mount Sinai West, and Mount Sinai Hospital.  The multi-site application is now open and we would like to extend the offer to your pre-medicine/pre-health students looking for a highly interactive Emergency Department volunteer experience.

The SRA Program assists the emergency department in ongoing research projects in an effort to bring greater precision to emergency medicine and improve the quality of care. Each research project focuses on  different aspects of patient care and may include clinical trials, patient and physician survey studies, observational studies, and practice-pattern studies. SRAs working in our emergency department are granted  access to EMR to help identify patients who are potential study participants or whose presence generates a study opportunity. Once these patients are identified, the SRAs often have  the opportunity to conduct informed consent,  administer patient questionnaires, collects data from physicians and/or the medical chart, and alert physicians of the study eligibility for patients. All SRAs undergo rigorous training sessions at the start of the program and are provided constant refreshers throughout the program.

The SRA Program provides a unique opportunity for pre-health students to gain substantial experience conducting clinical research which involves frequent engagement and direct contact with patient, and students will also have several opportunities to shadow residents and physicians in the emergency department. Additionally, observation of emergency department procedures, resuscitations, and general care is an integrated part of the experience, and in some cases required for the execution of a research enrollment. We have found that these experiences serve to be a great advantage for those applying to medical school and many of our previous SRAs have moved on to work with great mentors whom they met as part of this program.

We would like to ask your assistance in getting the word out to students about this great program at your institution.  If you think that the postbac or pre-health students at your school might be interested in applying to the SRA program, please forward this email to them. Provided is the link  to the application for the 2016-2017 school year, with a deadline of May 20th at midnight. Please let me know if you should have questions and/or concerns.

Respectfully,

Cindy Clesca, MA

Project Manager

Department of Emergency Medicine

Icahn School of Medicine at Mount Sinai

1 Gustave L. Levy Place, Box 1620

New York, New York 10029