The Department of Medicine’s Firm System provides medical students with personalized mentoring as they transition from the classroom to clinical settings as part of NYU Grossman School of Medicine’s MD curriculum.

During the clerkship year, students are assigned to one of nine “firms.” These are organized under the leadership of an experienced educator, known as the Firm Chief. These faculty mentors offer guidance on the roles and expectations of clerks, professionalism, and clinical skills during Core Medicine Clerkship and Ambulatory Care Clerkship experiences. Firm Chiefs also provide mentoring during the residency application process.

Firm Chiefs direct the educational strategies of the Department of Medicine, sharing teaching ideas and coordinating changes in the curriculum with clerkship directors and undergraduate medical education leadership during the department’s monthly undergraduate medical education council meetings.

The Firm System

Each of the groups in the Firm System is named in honor of a distinguished faculty member from the Department of Medicine. Learn about our past faculty members’ contributions to medicine and meet our Firm Chiefs.

Saul J. Farber Firm

The career of former professor, department chair, and dean Saul J. Farber, MD, at NYU Grossman School of Medicine spanned more than 35 years. A leader in internal medical and renal physiology, Dr. Farber also served as the president of the American College of Physicians, chaired the American Board of Internal Medicine and The New York Academy of Medicine, and helped author the New York Heart Association’s classification of the various stages of heart failure.

Firm Chief: Aron J. Mednick, MD

Ira Goldstein Firm

Internationally renowned rheumatologist Ira Goldstein, MD, served as an NYU Grossman School of Medicine faculty member in the 1970s and 1980s. Dr. Goldstein made important discoveries regarding how the body responds to inflammation and was the first to identify the connective tissue disorder systemic lupus erythematosus.

Firm Chiefs: Susan M. Talbot, MD, and Sabrina E. Felson, MD

Linda Laubenstein Firm

A physician and early HIV/AIDS researcher, Linda Laubenstein, MD, was among the first doctors to recognize the illness in the early 1980s and coauthored an early article linking AIDS and Kaposi sarcoma. An outspoken activist, Dr. Laubenstein founded the nonprofit Multitasking to employ people with AIDS, who often lost their jobs, as contract office workers.

Firm Chief: Michael LoCurcio, MD

H. Sherwood Lawrence Firm

Immunologist H. Sherwood Lawrence, MD, co-directed medical services at Bellevue Hospital and NYU hospitals from the 1960s to the 2000s, during which time he served as director of the cancer center and AIDS research. His research accomplishments include discovering transfer factor, a product of T lymphocytes that plays a key role in the body’s immune response, and identifying immune responses involved in the rejection of transplanted organs.

Firm Chief: Andrew Lehr, MD

Bertha Rader Firm

Bertha Rader, MD, served as the chief of the Cardiac Clinic and head of the electrocardiography service at Bellevue Hospital. As a teaching attending during her tenure at Bellevue, she trained hundreds of medical students and house staff and served as a paragon of the physician–patient relationship.

Firm Chief: Mitchell H. Charap, MD

Lewis Thomas Firm

Lewis Thomas, MD, served as dean of NYU Grossman School of Medicine and chair of medicine at Bellevue Hospital from 1966 to 1969. He is known for authoring the medical classic The Lives of a Cell and pioneering the field of experimental pathology.

Firm Chief: Norma M. Keller, MD

Simon Karpatkin Firm

Simon Karpatkin, MD, served on the NYU Grossman School of Medicine faculty for 45 years and as the director of the Division of Hematology. Dr. Karpatkin made notable contributions to the science of blood coagulation and related disorders.

Firm Chief: Elyse LaFond, MD

Barbara Parker Firm

Barbara Parker, MD was a part of the NYU faculty from 1943 until her retirement in 2006 at age 91. She was the model physician who instilled the importance of caring for each patient as an individual for generations at our medical school.

Firm Chief: John Hwang, MD

May Edward Chinn Firm

May Edward Chinn, MD, was the first African American woman to graduate from the Bellevue Hospital Medical College. She was also the first female physician to respond to emergency calls with ambulance crews. A pioneer in her field, Dr. Chinn dedicated much of her career to cancer screening, especially to those in most need.

Firm Chief: Taiye Odedosu, MD

Contact Us

For more information on the Firm System and other mentorship opportunities for medical students, contact Lida Andar, Program Supervisor, at Lida.Andar@NYULangone.org or 212-263-6261.