Tricia Camille Yusaf, MD
Tricia Camille Yusaf, MD
Associate Education Director
NYC Health + Hospitals/Simulation Center
Preparing the Next Generation of Doctors
“It is through physicians like her that we are going to change the way we approach medicine.” That’s what Senior Medical Director of NYC Health + Hospitals/Simulation Center Dr. Michael Meguerdichian says of Dr. Tricia Camille Yusaf.
Dr. Yusaf, an OB-GYN, joined the Simulation Center in 2019 after eight years as Chief of Labor and Delivery at NYC Health + Hospitals/Queens. She made an immediate impact at the center, which uses innovative teaching methods and simulation technology to improve clinical skills and promote teamwork. Dr. Yusaf focused on the center’s Maternal Mortality Reduction Program, delivering workshops and lectures at hospitals both inside and outside the health system across the city.
Dr. Yusaf was inspired to become a doctor after her grandmother developed diabetes and became a patient of NYC Health + Hospitals physicians whom she admired. “I assisted her with her insulin injections and often attended clinic visits,” Dr. Yusaf said. “Having great physician role models led to my decision to pursue a career in medicine.”
Aside from her role at the Simulation Center, Dr. Yusaf is an attending physician in Obstetrics and Gynecology at the health system’s Jacobi and North Central Bronx facilities. She has also trained and mentored many physicians, nurses and other health care providers and received faculty awards from the Icahn School of Medicine at Mount Sinai and the Council on Resident Education in Obstetrics and Gynecology. “I believe it is essential to teach and mentor the next generations of health care providers,” she says.
One of the things she emphasizes to her students is the importance of making a connection with patients: “My regular practice includes sitting at eye level when speaking, making eye contact while listening and looking for patients’ non-verbal emotional cues,” she says. “The smallest act of kindness we show our patients can profoundly affect the outcome of their illness and lives.”