Erica S. Friedman

Biography

Dr. Erica Friedman is the Associate Dean for Undergraduate Medical Education at the Mount Sinai School of Medicine (MSSM).  In that capacity, she oversees the curriculum and assessment for the entire medical school.  In addition, she is the Medical Director of the Morchand Center for Clinical Competence, which is a state of the art Standardized Patient (SP) Center that assesses clinical skills including history taking, physical examination, communication and cultural competency. 

She has created two comprehensive assessment exercises that occur at the end of the second and third years of medical school that use written and SP cases to assess medical students' clinical skills in patient management, ethical issues and evidence-based medicine. She has written multiple SP cases including cases requiring communication of an error to a patient, and obtaining consent for an autopsy and she has created written assessments that are linked to the SP cases to assess residents' ability to recognize a medical error, propose a solution and communicate with the patient. 

She received a grant from the AAMC "Enhancing Education about Chronic Illness" to implement a longitudinal curriculum around caring for patients with chronic illness and the Mannix Award from the Medical, Educational and Scientific Foundation of New York, Inc for a project entitled "Recognition and communication of medical errors: a three-year curriculum for Internal Medicine Residents" and is Co-Investigator on the Attorney General's Prescriber Education Program Grant, "Data smog and marketing fog: A critical skills curriculum to educate health professionals about rational prescribing". She is a co-chair of the Cultural Competency Curriculum and Evaluation Committee for the Center for Multicultural Affairs and in that role, has developed curricular goals and assessment tools for addressing cultural competency at MSSM. In addition, she is an Internist and Rheumatologist who runs the Mount Sinai Arthritis Clinic and teaches medical students, Internal Medicine residents and Rheumatology fellows. Her interests include enhancing physician-patient communication, promoting effective health care teamwork and educating people about osteoporosis and chronic illness management.