In a touching ceremony attended by family, friends, and colleagues, the Mount Sinai Health System recently announced the establishment of the Jeremy H. Boal, MD, MSH ’96, Endowed Fund in recognition of Dr. Boal’s extraordinary career and enduring impact. The Fund ensures vital support for the Mount Sinai Visiting Doctors Program, which Dr. Boal co-founded in 1995 with Drs. David Muller and Laurent Adler, and the Hospice and Palliative Care Fellowship at the Brookdale Department of Geriatrics and Palliative Medicine.

From his training as a Brookdale Fellow to his leadership roles, including Executive Vice President and Chief Clinical Officer of the Mount Sinai Health System, Dr. Boal’s career exemplifies a deep commitment to improving health care for the most vulnerable. He played a pivotal role in Mount Sinai’s response to the COVID-19 pandemic and championed initiatives addressing access to care.

“I’ve had the opportunity to be a part of Mount Sinai in so many ways. I’ve had clinical, academic, operational, and strategic responsibilities. I’ve been responsible for maintaining and improving the quality and safety of the entire Health System at times. It’s been a joy to have had the chance to do all of those things and learn so much.”
–Jeremy H. Boal, MD, MSH ’96

In 2023, Dr. Boal received a diagnosis of amyotrophic lateral sclerosis (ALS), the neurodegenerative disease commonly known as Lou Gehrig’s disease. Yet, even as he stepped down from his formal roles at Mount Sinai to focus on his health, Dr. Boal remains dedicated to a lifelong pursuit of compassion, empathy, and care as an active advocate for medical aid-in-dying legislation. Read Dr. Boal’s recently published essay here.

(Update: as of June 9, 2025, the New York State Senate passed the Medical Aid in Dying Act, the first time this has happened since the legislation was introduced in 2016. If signed into law by Governor Hochul, New York will become the 12th state to authorize this end-of-life care option.)

In His Own Words: Dr. Boal Reflects Upon a Career of Curiosity and Compassion

From left: Drs. David Muller, Laurent Adler, and Jeremy Boal, circa 1996

“I came to Mount Sinai in the early nineties as a second-year internal medicine resident. During my residency, I was curious about a number of patients in our practices who clearly needed care but were missing appointments. David Muller and I came up with the idea to use some elective time to track down some of these patients and ask them if we could go visit them in their homes to try to figure out what the gaps were in accessing care.

Even as busy as residencies are, I was developing this incredible curiosity and passion for understanding how the system works or doesn’t work and figuring out how to make it work better. That’s how the Visiting Doctors Program was started—with the intention of creating a clinical platform to bring care to patients in our communities who had great difficulty or simply couldn’t come to the hospital or our practices to get care.

When we proposed this idea to our residency director, Dr. Larry Smith, our chair of medicine, Dr. Barry Coller, and to other leaders, there was an interest and a willingness to explore it with us while recognizing that it was a daunting goal.

The response we got was: “let’s figure this out, and if you hit roadblocks, come tell us and we will help you.” It was a combination of us and our curiosity and our desire to make things better. And being lucky to be at a place like Mount Sinai that embraces taking on hard challenges. Mount Sinai has always been a place of profound curiosity and a willingness to try new things.

Since then, the program has operated continuously, caring for tens of thousands of New Yorkers all over Manhattan, significantly impacting those most vulnerable and at risk of losing access to care.

Being at Mount Sinai for most of my career and then having a chance to step away gave me an opportunity to gain a lot of insight into what makes Mount Sinai truly unique and truly special. In addition to the intense curiosity that is part of Mount Sinai’s DNA, another key characteristic is an absolute commitment to excellence and an intolerance for mediocre outcomes. If you work at Mount Sinai, you’re working at a place where we demand the best possible outcome for every patient and for our communities. And we are not afraid to be clear about that, we’re not afraid to take on really tough challenges.

Over the years, we’ve become a health system with many assets, hospitals, ambulatory sites, and virtual care, but we’ve never lost track of our vital mission and values. COVID was an extraordinary challenge and bearing witness to so much pain and suffering and so much loss transformed us as an organization. We had to flatten our hierarchy even more, create a structure where we could react and proactively act to address unpredictable challenges, at the speed at which they were occurring and experiment our way forward. This approach allowed us to save many more lives and protect our staff to a much greater degree.

Dr. Boal, front row, second from left, celebrates the 2017 opening of the Mount Sinai-Union Square Urgent Care with Mount Sinai leaders, local politicians, and community organizers

I’ve had the chance to spend decades working with extraordinary people on the most important mission of all: to create a world in which everybody can live the longest and healthiest, most disability-free life possible. There’s a unique ecosystem at Mount Sinai. It’s grounded in its values and in this commitment to collaborative discovery that allows for the creation of miracles, of extraordinary change. I’ve been witness to that for decades. I’m blown away by what our medical school creates. I’m blown away by what our hospitals and our ambulatory environments create and what they deliver. There’s just a fire in the belly of this organization to not accept the status quo. And that fills me with joy and gratitude.”

The above is excerpted from an interview with Dr. Boal upon receiving the 2024 Jacobi Medallion, the highest award bestowed upon a member of the Mount Sinai community.

“We celebrate Dr. Boal for what he has done, but also for who he is; for his clinical brilliance, his leadership, his tenacity, his kindness, his thoughtfulness, his friendship, his fervent belief in equity, and for simply doing the right thing for everyone around him every time—even during the most difficult circumstances.”

Brendan G. Carr, MD, MA, MS, Chief Executive Officer, Professor and Kenneth L. Davis, MD, Distinguished Chair, Mount Sinai Health System

“Jeremy’s empathy for people and human suffering is the foundation that drove all of the work that he’s done over the course of his career. He has such empathy for human suffering. There are no awards for that.”

David Muller, MD, MSH, ’95, Dean Emeritus for Medical Education, Director, Institute for Integrity and Justice in Medical Education, Icahn School of Medicine at Mount Sinai, Co-founder of MSVD with Dr. Boal

About the Jeremy H. Boal, MD, MSH ’96, Endowed Fund

Through the establishment of the Jeremy Boal Endowment, Mount Sinai not only celebrates Dr. Boal’s remarkable achievements but also fortifies the future of initiatives that embody his values. This fund is a cornerstone for advancing health care delivery and education, ensuring our most vulnerable patients receive the high-quality, compassionate care they deserve.

The Fund supports the Mount Sinai Visiting Doctors Program and the Hospice and Palliative Care Fellowship at the Brookdale Department of Geriatrics and Palliative Medicine.

While certain aspects of the Visiting Doctors program’s invaluable work are covered by insurance, many vital services—such as social work and caregiver support—depend on generous philanthropic contributions. The Jeremy Boal Endowed Fund ensures the sustainability of this transformative program, allowing it to amplify its reach and magnify its impact on the lives of homebound individuals and their caregivers. Generous support from donors helps Mount Sinai continue to be national leaders in home-based primary care.

About the Mount Sinai Visiting Doctors Program

Now in its 30th year, the program serves more than 1,000 homebound patients annually, providing compassionate, multidisciplinary care that addresses complex medical and social needs. The MSVD team—comprising physicians, nurses, social workers, and dedicated administrative staff—delivers personalized, multidisciplinary care directly to patients in their homes. This innovative approach encompasses not only physical examinations and medical management but also helps patients navigate essential resources and support systems, enabling them to remain in the comfort of their own homes. By doing so, MSVD has set a national standard in home-based primary care.

About the Hospice and Palliative Medicine Fellowship

Additionally, the endowed fund supports the Brookdale Fellowship, fostering the next generation of leaders in geriatrics and palliative medicine. Palliative care is specialized medical care for people living with a serious illness and is appropriate at any age and at any stage in a serious illness, and it can be provided along with curative treatment. This fellowship empowers physicians to meet the distinctive needs of ill and/or aging populations, an area where Dr. Boal has made significant strides. His legacy serves as a powerful inspiration for emerging clinicians, researchers, and advocates dedicated to providing holistic and compassionate care.

To learn more or contribute to the Jeremy Boal Endowed Fund, please contact Bryce Shaffer, Associate Director of Development, at bryce.shaffer@mountsinai.org or 929-637-3399. Together, we can honor Dr. Boal’s legacy and continue his mission of transforming care for generations to come.

Daniel S. Loeb, Mount Sinai Health System Trustee

More than 250 members of the Mount Sinai community and guests recently celebrated the 10th anniversary of the Ronald M. Loeb Center for Alzheimer’s Disease, founded through a generous donation from Mount Sinai Trustee Daniel S. Loeb and his wife, Margaret Munzer Loeb. The center is named for Daniel’s father, who passed away from Alzheimer’s disease (AD).

At the event, Mr. Loeb spoke eloquently about his family’s personal experience with AD and his father’s continued legacy. “I tell his story because this is a disease that doesn’t care how kind you are or how decent you are. It is indiscriminate. And the pain that it’s caused has been severe,” he told the audience, which included leading AD clinicians and researchers. “Ultimately, you are scientists, and you look at the disease, and this is a disease that profoundly affects individuals and their families. Seeing this group come together to make such great progress over the last 10 years is really inspiring. So thank you very much for all you do.”

Today, nearly 7 million Americans have AD, a number that is expected to rise to 13 million by 2050.

The inaugural director of the Loeb Center—whose recruitment was made possible by the family’s philanthropy—is Alison Goate, DPhil, the Jean C. and James W. Crystal Professor of Genomics and Chair of the Department of Genetics and Genomic Sciences, Professor of Neuroscience, and a member of the Friedman Brain Institute. Dr. Goate has recruited a roster of outstanding faculty, and their research on AD and other neurodegenerative diseases—in many cases, groundbreaking—have helped establish it as a preeminent center, known worldwide. Dr. Goate told the attendees that during its first decade, faculty recruits have doubled and National Institutes of Health funding has more than tripled.

Specifically, the Loeb Center has been at the forefront of exploring the role of microglia—the brain’s immune cells—in the development of AD, and by integrating large-scale molecular data from patients using artificial intelligence (AI), they have been able to identify new drug targets. In the next decade, Dr. Goate believes their work holds great potential for uncovering possible new treatments for patients.

Alison M. Goate, DPhil, Director of the Ronald M. Loeb Center for Alzheimer’s Disease; Jean C. and James W. Crystal Professor of Genomics; Chair of the Department of Genetics and Genomic Sciences; Professor of Neuroscience; and a member of the Friedman Brain Institute

The Loeb Center has become a leading force in translational research, assuring that patients have access to the latest laboratory breakthroughs. These are often made possible by insights gained from its deep repository of human brain tissue, which has yielded new knowledge into the underpinnings of neurodegenerative disease. The Center has also recently made gains by developing novel blood biomarkers that will help toward improving early diagnosis.

Presentations from faculty also focused on the role of genomics in driving new therapeutics and highlighted their commitment to training the next generation of scientists, featuring a poster presentation from students and trainees who showcased their most recent work. Keynote speaker Jim Ray, PhD, Director of the Belfer Neurodegeneration Center at MD Anderson Cancer Center, spoke compellingly about the challenges of finding a cure for neurodegenerative diseases, but he also projected optimism, saying that research built on AI, genomics, and new disease models holds greater promise.

While the science is complex, it was made clear that the first 10 years of the Loeb Center have been pivotal in making the discoveries that will bring scientists everywhere many steps closer to improved diagnosis and treatment. These advances would not have been possible without the visionary philanthropy of Daniel and Margaret Munzer Loeb, says Dr. Goate, and it is upon that success that the Loeb Center has positioned itself as a leader in the field for decades to come.