Our Employee Health and Wellness Services offer evaluation and treatment for work-related illnesses and injuries, return-to-work evaluations, and a Workplace Accommodations Program, as well as medical surveillance programs, including testing and immunizations mandated by OSHA, New York State and City, and MSK. Additionally, EH&WS administers the MSK Employee Wellness Program.
Clinical Activities
Our main function is to protect the health and safety of our employees as volunteers, students, agency personnel, etc., through compliance with all regulatory requirements and MSK employee health and safety policies. In so doing, employees ensure their own safety as well as that of MSK’s patients and visitors.
MSK Employee Wellness Program
Started in 2009, the MSK Employee Wellness Program consists of programs designed to assist both employees and their dependents in achieving optimal health, reducing direct healthcare costs, and increasing productivity. The program includes components of nutrition/weight management, fitness and exercise, tobacco cessation, and stress management. Additionally, the program provides cancer and biometrics screenings. Programs provided by outside vendors include disease management, maternity management, and large-case management.
Research
Our faculty have varied research interests ranging from traditional occupational medicine issues such as return to work, workplace accommodations, and disability management to diagnosing and treating latent tuberculosis infection, preventing blood-borne pathogen exposures, preventing and assessing exposures to respiratory viruses (e.g., influenza) in the workplace, and measuring immunity to varicella. Additionally, our MSK Employee Wellness program affords us the opportunity to study population health among healthcare workers with particular emphasis on the psychosocial needs of those caring for patients with cancer.
Education & Training
Trainees experience not only the clinical variety of occupational problems presenting among healthcare workers, but also the infectious diseases they contract or are exposed to. Physicians in training will become familiar with developing the necessary strategies for the containment and prevention of contagious diseases. They are highly encouraged to engage with faculty members’ ongoing research programs or develop proposals of their own. Many have successfully done so with presentations at national professional society and scientific meetings.
Our trainees include
- infectious diseases fellows from MSK, who are actively involved in our annual influenza vaccination campaign;
- transitional-year interns from MSK, who rotate through our service as part of the ambulatory care experience, as well as
- occupational and environmental medicine residents from the Icahn School of Medicine at Mount Sinai.
As part of their training, Mount Sinai residents are requires to complete a research project for presentation at a national meeting. Many have gone on to assume positions at prominent academic medical centers, including Vanderbilt University Medical Center and the Icahn School of Medicine.
Our Faculty
Shuchi Agarwal, MD, MPH
Assistant Attending, Employee Health & Wellness Services
Rebecca Guest, MD, MPH, FACOEM
Medical Director, Employee Health & Wellness Services
I am an occupational medicine physician with over ten years of experience in the care of medical center employees. In addition to providing clinical care to staff with work-related illnesses or injuries, I am the Medical Director of MSK’s Employee Health Clinic and MSK’s Employee Wellness Program.
Chanchal Sharma, PsyD, MSEd, MA
Assistant Attending Psychologist, Employee Health & Wellness Services
Deepti Zalavadia, MD
Assistant Attending Physician, Employee Health & Wellness Services
Contact Us
Prospective fellows, residents, and faculty
Rebecca Guest, MD, MPH, FACOEM
Medical Director
Employee Health & Wellness Services
Memorial Sloan Kettering Cancer Center
222 East 70th Street
New York, NY 10021
