SEIU Committee of Interns and Residents

From KeyWiki
Jump to navigation Jump to search
SEIU Committee of Interns and Residents Logo

Committee of Interns and Residents is a local of SEIU.

About

SEIU Committee of Interns and Residents "represents more than 27,000 interns, residents, and fellows in California, Florida, Idaho, Illinois, Massachusetts, New Jersey, New Mexico, New York, Vermont, Washington, and Washington, D.C."[1]

Mount Sinai is 'Racist'

Excerpt from article about SEIU Committee of Interns and Residents dated May. 18, 2023 by Carlotta Mohamed:[2]

"About 170 resident physicians at Elmhurst Hospital, employed by the Icahn School of Medicine at Mount Sinai, are preparing to go on a five-day ULP [Unfair Labor Practice] strike beginning Monday, May 22.
The physicians, who are unionized with the Committee of Interns and Residents (CIR), said that they’re fed up after almost a year of bargaining with the corporate health system on pay parity and other various benefits including education, transportation, leave, sick leave, meal stipends and hazard pay.
The physicians said that this behavior from Mount Sinai feels both racist and anti-union.
“It feels so unjust that we, as largely immigrant doctors serving this working-class immigrant community in Queens, have to beg to get what we need to pay our rent, and from a corporation like Mount Sinai that touts its commitment to New York communities,” said Dr. Tanathun Kajornsakchai. “Mount Sinai should invest in the doctors caring for so many people in Queens who cannot get care anywhere else.”

Trainee Docs Go on Strike

SEIU Tweet Promoting Elmhurst Strike dated May 22, 2023

A New York Times article by Joseph Goldstein dated May 22, 2023 featured a strike of "trainee doctors" supported by SEIU Committee of Interns and Residents at Elmhurst Hospital Center in Queens:[3]

More than 150 trainee doctors went on strike Monday morning at , the first physician strike at a hospital in New York City in more than 30 years.
Chief among their grievances is the fact that they are generally paid less working at a public hospital in Queens, where they care for poor patients, than their counterparts are paid at wealthier Manhattan institutions.
Though the strike is relatively small and not expected to result in major disruptions to care, it is heavy on symbolism. Some three years ago, Elmhurst was among the first hospitals in the United States to be overwhelmed by Covid-19.
Descriptions of panicked, gasping patients, chest compressions and refrigerated morgue trucks — scenes one Elmhurst doctor described as “apocalyptic” — served as a warning for the rest of the country.
Now the striking young doctors, many of whom were still in medical school in 2020, say the pandemic has encouraged activism and organizing — and a growing willingness to challenge the low pay young trainee doctors receive for working long and grueling hours.
“As international residents, we’re always so thankful — we feel very lucky to be here,” said Dr. Sarah Hafuth, a leader among the resident physicians, who comes from Canada. She added: “The pandemic was an eye-opener. Physicians really started to question our worth and asking, ‘Are we getting the support we need, given the situation we’re in?’”
At Elmhurst, residents had more difficulty obtaining hazard pay during the pandemic than residents at some Manhattan hospitals. That angered many resident physicians and hazard pay remains one of the issues driving the strike, one union delegate, a psychiatry resident, Dr. Tanathun Kajornsakchai, said on Friday.
Physician strikes are a rarity in the United States. The last one in New York City, according to the Committee of Interns and Residents, the union organizing this week’s strike, was in 1990 when young doctors at a Bronx hospital went on strike for nine days. They ultimately won a pay raise and stricter enforcement of rules against working more than 12 hours in a row.
Though the striking doctors work at Elmhurst, they are employed by the Icahn School of Medicine at Mount Sinai, which has its headquarters in Manhattan.
Doctors at many of New York’s 11 public hospitals are employed by major Manhattan hospitals and medical schools — the result of longstanding “affiliation” agreements between the public hospital system and the city’s leading medical institutions.
That means that the city’s public hospital system, NYC Health + Hospitals, is largely a bystander in the negotiations.
“Our medical residents play a critical role in patient care, and we are hopeful they will reach a labor agreement soon to avoid a strike,” the public hospital system said in a statement. “In the meantime, we are making all the necessary preparations to ensure uninterrupted access to patient care services if there is a strike.”
Chief among the residents’ complaints is that their counterparts working at Mount Sinai’s main hospital, opposite Central Park on East 98th Street, make considerably more.
Dr. Hafuth said that first-year residents assigned to Elmhurst made about $68,000 a year, while the residents working at Mount Sinai’s main campus made $75,000. The Manhattan resident physicians also have several perks, Dr. Hafuth said, including that they can take a car service home at night.
“Our patient load is all the same,” she said. “We see the same medical pathologies, the same complexity. So we’re at a point where we’re quite frustrated about why Mount Sinai is willing to pay the residents on the Upper East Side more than us.”
A spokeswoman for Mount Sinai, Lucia Lee, said in a statement that the health system was “committed to working toward an equitable and reasonable resolution that is in the best interest for both our residents at Elmhurst as well as for the Mount Sinai Health System.”
The strike comes after more than 10 months of contract negotiations between Mount Sinai and the Committee of Interns and Residents, the union that represents the resident doctors. Mount Sinai said that the union rejected its “last, best and final offer” — which, according to Mount Sinai, would have provided for raises of between 5 and 7 percent a year, for the next three years.
As many as 172 doctors went on strike at 7 a.m. Monday, drawn from the departments of internal medicine, pediatrics and psychiatry.
“Our dedicated staff are ready to take on extra shifts, and we will be able to mobilize clinicians from other health system hospitals if necessary,” the statement from the public hospital system said.

Executive Committee 2022-2024

From the SEIU Committee of Interns and Residents website:

  • Lorenzo Gonzalez, MD, MPL, President, LA County – Harbor UCLA Med Center, Family Medicine
  • Yariana Rodriguez Ortiz, MD, Executive Vice President, Houston Methodist Hospital – (formerly Wyckoff), Nephrology Fellowship
  • Michael Zingman MD, MPH, Secretary-Treasurer, NYU/Bellevue Hospital, Psychiatry
  • Andrea Attenasio, DO Regional VP – NJ/DC, Jersey City Medical Center, Orthopedic Surgery
  • Patrick Beagen, MD, Regional VP – Nor Cal:, UC Davis Medical Center, Radiation Oncology
  • Ja’Nelle Blocker, MD, Regional VP – NJ/DC:, Howard University Hospital, Psychiatry
  • Stephen Goldberg, MD, Regional VP – So CA-UC:, UC Irvine Medical Center, Anesthesiology
  • Monique Hedmann, Regional VP – So CA:, Harbor UCLA Medical Center, Family Medicine
  • DaShawn Hickman, Regional VP – Nor Cal:, Alameda Health System, Emergency Medicine
  • Dayna Isaacs, MD, MPH, Regional VP – So CA-UC:, UCLA Medical Center, Internal Medicine
  • Matt Siow, Regional VP – So CA-UC:, UC San Diego Health, Orthopedic Surgery
  • Mahima Inyengar, Regional VP – So CA:, Los Angeles County – USC Medical Center, Med/Peds
  • Dina Jaber, Regional VP – NY Public:, Kings County Medical Center, Internal Medicine
  • Kaushal Khambhati, Regional VP – NY Public:, Jacobi Medical Center
  • Abner Murray, Regional VP – Florida, Jackson Memorial Hospital, Internal Medicine
  • Colleen Achong, Regional VP – NY Private:, Interfaith Medical Center, Internal Medicine
  • Anna Ivanova, Regional VP – NY Private:, Brookdale University Hospital, Emergency Medicine
  • Steven Miller, Regional VP – NY Private:, Brooklyn Hospital Center, Critical Care Fellowship
  • Chris Thipphavong, Regional VP – NY Private:, Maimonides Medical Center, Psychiatry
  • Erica Lee, Regional VP – MA:, Cambridge Health Alliance, Psychiatry
  • Taylor Walker, Regional VP – MA:, Cambridge Health Alliance, Family Medicine
  • Fan Jim Yang, Regional VP – NY Public:, Jacobi Medical Center, Emergency Medicine
  • Alexandra Ninneman, MD, Regional VP NM:, University of New Mexico, Family Medicine
  • Joshua Neff, MD, MS, UCSF Medical Center, Psychiatry

References

  1. ↑ Who We Are (accessed May 22, 2023)]
  2. ↑ Elmhurst Hospital residents set to strike next week over disparities in pay, benefits (accessed May 22, 2023)]
  3. ↑ Resident Doctors Go on Strike at Elmhurst Hospital in Queens (accessed May 22, 2023)]
Retrieved from "https://keywiki.org/index.php?title=SEIU_Committee_of_Interns_and_Residents&oldid=600929"