Carmen Renee Green, M.D.

Carmen Renée Green, MD, was appointed Dean of the CUNY School of Medicine on October 4, 2021. Located in Harlem, CUNY School of Medicine is home to an accelerated 7-year BS/MD and one of the nation’s oldest public Physician Assistant programs. The School has a holistic admissions process and has never used the MCAT. An immediate priority was getting CUNY Medicine fully accredited by the Liaison Committee on Medical Education (LCME). The School had been on provisional-probationary status; with Dean Green’s leadership, it earned a full five-year accreditation—the longest timeframe possible for a first attempt. In October 2023, Dean Green successfully petitioned the CUNY Board of Trustees to expand the School’s offerings to include a traditional four-year MD—the first step in a long-term strategic growth plan. Her visionary leadership led to the school becoming an independent stand alone and CUNY’s 26th College in November 2024.

Under her leadership, the school leads NY and the nation in producing physicians traditionally under-represented in medicine. Her vision of inclusive excellence focuses on producing doctors New Yorkers need and want to see while being at the forefront of developing strategies to address the social determinants, thereby eliminating inequities in our time. Dr. Green recruited an executive leadership team to spur innovation, expansion, and address the social determinants of medical education. Curricular innovations include the Bridge to M1 and Bridge to Clerkship Programs to prepare students for entry into the medical school and USMLE while also incorporating a mandatory Pre-Matriculation Program that provides incoming undergraduates with exposure to community-based and biomedical research before their first semester.

An academic ambulatory and obstetrical anesthesiologist, pain medicine physician and physician scientist, she is an elected fellow of the NY Academy of Medicine, Gerontological Society of America, and Association of University Anesthesiologists. A Robert Wood Johnson Health Policy fellow at the National Academy of Medicine (NAM), she worked in the U.S. Senate’s Children & Families subcommittee within Health, Education, Labor, and Pensions and helped draft the National Pain Care Policy Act, within the Affordable Care Act. Dean Green’s groundbreaking research sits at the nexus of public health and healthcare quality, equity, and policy. She authored germinal and seminal papers poignantly revealing inequities, diminished healthcare quality, and suboptimal access and pain care for women, minorities, and low-income people, and was the first to identify hospital security errors. Her recent honors include being named one of Forbes magazine’ 50 over 50 for impact and a Trailblazer in Higher Education. She has made presentations across the globe including the US Congress, NIH, and NAM. Her former students now mentor and inspire others.