The Mount Sinai Adolescent Health Center (MSAHC) marked its 50th anniversary by honoring five individuals and the Mount Sinai Auxiliary Board at its 15th Annual Breakfast of Legends benefit at the Ziegfeld Ballroom on October 30.  The Center provides free, comprehensive, confidential health and wellness services to nearly 12,000 young people each year and is renowned as a national leader in adolescent health research and training.

Peter W. May, Chairman, Boards of Trustees, Mount Sinai Health System, provided a warm welcome to the 500 guests, noting that he had attended every breakfast for the last 15 years.  “The Center is one of the shining stars in the Mount Sinai galaxy,” he said.  Mr. May also received the Dr. Joan E. Morgenthau Lifetime Advocate for Youth Award.

Angela Diaz, MD, PhD, MPH, Jean C. and James W. Crystal Professor in Adolescent Health and Director of the MSAHC, thanked everyone who made the event possible.  “One tree doesn’t make a forest, and one string doesn’t make an instrument,” she said.  “All of you make the forest and make the orchestra.”  Dr. Diaz also recognized Henry S. Berman, MD, who was one of the original physicians on staff at the Center and worked with Dr. Morgenthau, the Center’s founder.

Adam, a young patient, shared that his mother was a patient at the Center when she was a teenager, and that he is named after the counselor she saw.  He spoke of his emotional struggles and the support he received at the Center, saying, “I owe my life as I know it to the Mount Sinai Adolescent Health Center.”

Former and current patients introduced the honorees and speakers and related how the Center had changed their lives by providing confidential care when they needed it most.

The honorees were:

Gary C. Butts, MD, Chief Diversity and Inclusion Officer for the Mount Sinai Health System and Dean for Diversity Programs, Policy and Community Affairs for the Icahn School of Medicine at Mount Sinai;

Lenore Katz-Cohen, OD, optical care sponsor and provider at MSAHC, and Robert Cohen, OD, CEO of Cohen’s Fashion Optical, who together with the Cohen family established optical care at the Center;

Peter W. May, President and a founding partner of Trian Fund Management, L.P. and Chairman of the Board of Trustees of the Mount Sinai Health System;

The Mount Sinai Auxiliary Board;

Bethany Novak, MS, RN, FNP-BC, who joined MSAHC as a Family Nurse Practitioner in 1988 and has provided primary care and compassionate guidance to young people ever since.

Digital Journal

See photos of the event here

See videos from the event here