Who We Are
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| CIR members from around the country at the annual convention. |
The Committee of Interns and Residents is the largest housestaff union in the country, representing more than 12,000 residents in California, Florida, Massachusetts, New Jersey, New York Washington, D.C., and Puerto Rico. CIR contracts improve housestaff salaries and working conditions as well as enhance the quality of patient care. CIR was founded in 1957. In May, 1997, CIR affiliated with the 1.6 million member Service Employees International Union (SEIU), with 900,000 healthcare workers all over the country. Our affiliation with SEIU has increased our strength wherever CIR represents housestaff.
CIR was originally founded by interns and residents in New York City’s public hospitals. In 1958, CIR achieved the first collective bargaining agreement for housestaff anywhere in the U.S. By the mid-1960s, CIR had established the only housestaff-administered benefit plan. By 1969-70, members in the private, or voluntary, sector started organizing and joining CIR.
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| CIR members at Highland Hospital, in Oakland, Ca. |
In a landmark achievement in 1975, CIR won contractual limits for on-call schedules of one night in three. In the late 1980s and early 1990s, CIR successfully negotiated innovative maternity leave clauses, won provisions for pay for housestaff covering for absent colleagues, and in 1989 helped shape New York State’s regulations that set maximum work hour limits for housestaff. Since then, CIR members have negotiated hours limitations and program security clauses in Miami, Los Angeles and Boston. These important advances have become models for improving residency programs across the country.
Our Executive Committee
Each Spring, our members elect Delegates and Alternate Delegates to serve for the following residency year. Each hospital elects no fewer than two delegates and two alternates.
Delegates vote on the issues that come before our annual House of Delegates (HOD) meetings, and elect the executive committee for the coming year. Executive officers plan the year's program of activity and meet at least three times annually to review the work of the union.
Executive Committee May 2008 - May 2009
President
Luella Toni Lewis, MD
Geriatric Medicine
Caritas Health Care, Inc.
Jamaica, NY
Executive Vice President
Nailah Thompson, DO
Internal Medicine
Highland Hospital
Oakland, California
Secretary-Treasurer
Elizabeth Burpee, MD
Internal Medicine
University of New Mexico
Albuquerque, NM
Regional Vice President: Southern California
Suganya Karuppana, MD
Family Medicine
Harbor-UCLA Medical Center
Los Angeles, CA
Regional Vice President: Northern California
Rachel Kreps-Falk, MD
Pediatrics
Children's Hospital and Research Center of Oakland
Oakland, CA
Regional Vice Presidents: New Mexico
John Ingle, MD
Otolaryngology
University of New Mexico
Albuquerque, NM
Regional Vice President: Florida
Janetta Dominic Cureton, MD
Psychiatry
Jackson Memorial Hospital
Miami, Florida
Regional Vice President: Massachusetts
Michael Mazzini, MD
Cardiovascular Medicine
Boston Medical Center
Boston, MA
Regional Vice President: New Jersey/DC
Snehal Bhatt, MD
Psychiatry
Robert Wood Johnson Medical Center
New Brunswick, NJ
Regional Vice Presidents: New York
Kate Aberger, MD
Emergency Medicine
Lincoln Hospital
Bronx, New York
Matthew Harris, MD, MBA
Orthopaedic Surgery
NYMC
Westchester Medical Center,
St. Vincent's Manhattan
Farbod Raiszadeh, MD, PhD
Internal Medicine
St. Luke's-Roosevelt Hospital Center
New York, NY
Vishal Jagmolian Verma, MD
Internal Medicine
Brooklyn Hospital Center
Brooklyn, NY
Harlem Hospital
General Surgery
New York, NY