Paloma Claire Orozco Scott

About Me
Paloma Claire Orozco Scott
Meet 2023 Award Recipient

Paloma Claire Orozco Scott

Paloma came to the Icahn School of Medicine at Mount Sinai from Brown University where they majored in Ethnic Studies and went on to complete a Master of Arts in American Studies. In college, Paloma worked as a coordinator for the Health Leads Program, providing social services to the parents of pediatric patients at the Hasbro Children’s Hospital. Paloma entered the MD program in 2019.

Since coming to Icahn, Paloma has made significant contributions to community service and anti-racist institutional change. Dean Ann-Gel S Palermo introduced Paloma to the East Harlem Community Health Committee (EHCHC) where they worked on a project raising awareness about the 2020 Census. Paloma also served as the Community Engagement Chair and Co-Chief Teaching Senior for East Harlem Health Outreach Partnership (EHHOP), the student-run free clinic. At the beginning of the COVID-19 pandemic, Paloma lead a EHHOP campaign to distribute 28 AC units to EHHOP patients at high-risk of heat-related illness, the #1 cause of climate-related death in NYC.

Institutionally, Paloma served as a student council (StuCo) representative for all four years. Serving as StuCo Secretary, they advocated for increased institutional support for students engaged in anti-racist programmatic development and founded anti-racist summer readings groups. Their work set the stage for the launch of the Racism and Bias Initiative (RBI) x Center for Anti-Racism in Practice (CAP) Fellowship. As a RBI x CAP Fellow, Paloma conducted an ‘equity audit’ of the school’s 15 most highly utilized policies. Paloma also carried out their mission to create a more equitable and just healthcare system in their work advocating for the elimination of a ‘race-correction’ for African American race in the formula for kidney function.

Paloma would like to thank their friends, teachers, family and the patients who have shaped them into the person they are today.

Paloma will graduate with their MD degree and continue their residency in Internal Medicine at the University of California San Francisco (UCSF) in a primary care track at the San Francisco General Hospital.

Paloma Claire Orozco Scott is receiving the:

Gold Humanism Honor Society


Irwin Gelernt, MD, Award for Service to the Community


The Leonard Tow Humanism in Medicine Student Award


James Felt Award for the Promotion of Social and Racial Justice