Touro Awarded $3.2 Million in Federal Funds

More than $3.2 million in federal funding was awarded for exciting projects at Touro University Jacob D. Fuchsberg Law Center and New York Medical College, a member of Touro University. These grants were included in the federal omnibus spending package for 2023.

Touro Law Center will receive $475,000 to create a new Small Business Legal Clinic that will offer legal assistance to minority and women-owned small businesses. The free clinic will support the planning, development and success of small businesses, creating a network of support and opportunities to help underrepresented communities.

Touro’s New York Medical College received two grants—$1.9 million to expand existing clinical skills and disaster medicine facilities and create the Equity and Compassion in Medical Education Through Advanced Real-Time Simulations project and $825,000 to support the Women’s Institute for Science Entrepreneurship.

“The support from Congress for education and training of medical students and others in healthcare and disaster medicine is invaluable, especially the science mentorship program for women" said Alan Kadish, M.D., President of New York Medical College and Touro University. "We particularly want to thank Senator Charles Schumer, Congressman Mondaire Jones and Senator Kirsten Gillibrand for their support."

Providing Legal Services to Local Underserved Small Businesses

Small businesses are the backbone of the economy and livelihood of so many Long Islanders.

Through this grant, Touro Law will support the incubation, development and success of minority and women-owned small businesses across Long Island through critical legal assistance, access to resources, networking building and educational programming. The Small Business Legal Assistance Clinic will also provide important hands-on training for law students as they represent actual clients with real legal needs in the community.

Training Doctors for Modern Times—Equity and Compassion in Medical Education

Every patient wants to see a physician with an empathetic bedside manner who understands his or her life challenges, not just his medical condition. The Equity and Compassion in Medical Education project will train medical professionals to provide compassionate care by challenging them with demanding real-time healthcare scenarios.

With the funding secured through this grant, the highly specialized healthcare training facility at New York Medical College will be expanded to provide students and residents with patient encounters designed to teach and test their ability to recognize patients’ issues that go deeper than the health problems they report. Ethnically diverse mock patients, portrayed by professional actors or high-fidelity mannequins, may initially conceal food insecurity, unemployment or disordered personal relationships, all of which students will learn to probe and investigate with the same intensity as they would direct to chest pain or impending labor. Simulations of community-wide emergencies, such as mass transit accidents, active shooter events or pandemics, will intensify the level of preparedness, situational awareness, and rapid responsiveness required of every healthcare professional in modern times.

“This recognition by the U.S. Congress ennobles our 162-year-old institution and advances its historic mission,” said Robert W. Amler, M.D., Vice President for Government Affairs and Dean of the School of Health Sciences and Practice and Institute of Public Health. “These innovative educational approaches will instill new reality-based skills in future healthcare professionals for many years to come, and will bring new vitality to the growing ranks of women as science entrepreneurs.”

Advancing the Role of Women in Science Entrepreneurship

The Women’s Institute for Science Entrepreneurship (WISE) is a transformative program that will allow women to cultivate new scientific concepts and launch new businesses, create a multidisciplinary entrepreneurship educational opportunity for students and launch careers for alumni who will make significant differences to their communities and the world.

WISE draws upon educators and students from Touro University, New York Medical College (NYMC) and BioInc@NYMC, the award-winning biotechnology incubator for local entrepreneurs and start-up biotech firms, located on the NYMC campus. The program will support women student innovators and entrepreneurs to pursue their STEM education and research, with the goal of transforming ideas into reality.

“We are grateful to the U.S. Congress for supporting our mission of empowering women in science and encouraging the entrepreneurial spirit,” said Marina K. Holz, Ph.D., Dean of the Graduate School of Biomedical Sciences, Professor of Cell Biology and Anatomy, Director of the Integrated Ph.D. Program, Interim Chair of the Department of Biochemistry and Molecular Biology, who will serve as Director of WISE. “Interventions that create a path for women in science to become business leaders are most effective when introduced early in their educational and professional careers, and this program will robustly promote this goal.”