Dr. Jessie Fields is an attending physician in Internal Medicine affiliated with the Mount Sinai Hospital in Manhattan. She maintains a primary care general medical practice at the Mount Sinai Faculty Practice in the Harlem community. She is on the faculty of the Icahn School of Medicine at Mount Sinai and an adjunct faculty member at the Touro College of Osteopathic Medicine. At both medical schools Dr. Fields is a role model for medical students pursuing careers in primary care in underserved communities.
Having grown up in a poor black community in Philadelphia, she set out on a career to bring better health conditions to poor urban communities. Dr. Fields was awarded a National Public Health Service Corps medical scholarship and attended Bryn Mawr College and the Medical College of Pennsylvania in Philadelphia. She completed her residency in Internal Medicine at the Hospital of the Medical College of Pennsylvania in 1985, and became Board Certified in Internal Medicine the same year.
During medical school she worked on the West Side of Chicago at a neighborhood health center where she initiated a hypertension screening program. As a physician she would go on to practice at the same community health center.
Dr. Fields moved to New York City in 1991, initially working as a primary care physician for the Health Insurance Plan of New York, in Brooklyn and then for the 32-BJ Union Health Center in Manhattan. In 1994 she became affiliated with North General Hospital in Harlem and remained on the voluntary staff there until the hospital closed in 2010.
An advocate for the health of the Harlem community, Dr. Fields took her commitment to community health into the political arena and has run for public office as an independent candidate, including for Manhattan Borough President in 2005 and for other local offices. She is very active as an independent leader.