Reena Karani, MD, MHPE
Dr. Karani was elected as chair, having previously served as treasurer. She is director of the Institute for Medical Education and a professor of medicine, medical education, and geriatrics and palliative medicine at the Icahn School of Medicine at Mount Sinai. Dr. Karani is a founding co-director of the Harvard Macy Program for Postgraduate Trainees. She served as a member of council and chair of the Education Committee for the Society of General Internal Medicine, and she is on the board of directors of the American Geriatrics Society. At NBME, she currently serves on the USMLE Composite Committee, the NBME Finance & Audit Committees, and the Step 3 Computer Case Simulation Test Material Development Committee. Dr. Karani also chairs the USMLE Patient Characteristics Advisory Panel, focused on ensuring exam content, practices, and review processes consider patient characteristics in a manner that mitigates bias and is consistent with contemporary scientific knowledge and understanding.
Dr. Karani received a Bachelor of Science from Brown University and a Doctor of Medicine from the Albert Einstein College of Medicine. She completed her residency and chief residency in Primary Care Internal Medicine at Montefiore Medical Center of the Albert Einstein College of Medicine. She completed her fellowship, chief fellowship, and medical education research fellowship in Geriatrics and Palliative Medicine at Mount Sinai. She also received a Master of Health Professions Education from the University of Illinois at Chicago.
Dr. Karani’s commitment to equity and justice is evident in her work. Her current scholarship is focused on reducing stereotyping and bias in assessment and explores the socialization and learning experiences in the clinical learning environment of students historically excluded from medicine. Dr. Karani’s work also explores how dominant values and beliefs that underpin the clinical workplace environment influence the experiences and professional identity of these vulnerable learners.
