Message from our DIO
Dear Residents, Fellows, Students, and Future Members of the MVHS Academic Community,
It is my sincere pleasure to welcome you to Mohawk Valley Health System and Wynn Hospital. Whether you are considering MVHS for the next stage of your training or have already chosen to join us, I want you to know how seriously we take the responsibility of being entrusted with your education.
I have spent my entire career in academic medicine, working closely with residents and medical students as an educator, mentor, and residency program leader. While my roles have changed over the years, the most rewarding part of my career has remained remarkably constant: the relationships I have built with trainees and the privilege of watching them grow in knowledge, confidence, and leadership, and ultimately into physicians I am proud to call colleagues. That experience continues to shape how I approach my role as Designated Institutional Official at MVHS.
This is an exciting time to train at Mohawk Valley Health System. Wynn Hospital provides a modern clinical environment serving a broad and medically complex patient population, while our growing graduate medical education community brings together learners and faculty from across multiple specialties and disciplines. As we continue to expand our academic mission, we have an opportunity not simply to grow programs, but to build a culture of education in which residents and students are known, supported, challenged, and given a meaningful voice in shaping the institution around them.
During your residency training, the stakes are high and the expectations are even higher. Excellent patient care, meaningful professional growth, and the responsibility that comes with becoming an independent physician demand hard work, curiosity, accountability, resilience, and a willingness to continually challenge yourself. We will expect all of those things from you. But in return, your expectations of us should be equally high. You should expect exceptional teaching, faculty who are genuinely invested in your development, an institution that listens to and advocates for its trainees, and leadership that is accessible, responsive, and personally engaged in your education. The responsibility for your growth is shared, and we should hold ourselves to the same high standard that we ask of you.
For me, that last point is particularly important. Although I now serve in an institutional leadership role, I remain an educator first. I hope to know our residents and students personally, to hear about your experiences, to celebrate your successes, and to be available when you encounter the inevitable challenges that are part of becoming an outstanding physician and healthcare professional.
If you choose to train at MVHS, you will be joining us at a particularly meaningful moment in our academic development. You will not simply experience what we are building, you will help shape it. I hope that years from now, you will look back on your time here not only as a period of exceptional clinical training, but as a place where you were valued, challenged, supported, and genuinely known.
On behalf of our faculty, program leadership, and the entire MVHS academic community, welcome to Wynn Hospital. I look forward to meeting you personally and to being part of your journey!
Warmly,
David Oves Andonian, MD, MPH
Designated Institutional Official (DIO)
