Professional Interests

Dr. Sheira Schlair is Co-Director of the Introduction to Clinical Medicine curriculum with primary oversight for the Communication Skills curriculum for Einstein medical students. She is an experienced medical educator with special interest and expertise in teaching and remediating communication skills and professionalism.

Dr. Schlair previously served for close to a decade as an Associate Program Director, Firm 1 Director and Director of Clinical Skills Assessment for the Montefiore Moses/Weiler Internal Medicine Residency Program, overseeing the OSCE and miniCEX / Direct Clinical Observation programs. During her tenure she was the recipient of several teaching awards for her work with residents and medical students. She is a graduate of the eight-year combined BA/MD program at Case Western Reserve University School of Medicine with concentrations in medical education scholarship and the Primary Care Track. She completed a BA in medical anthropology and also completed coursework and achieved a Certificate in European Social Sciences from University of Amsterdam, the Netherlands. She is a graduate and former Chief Resident of the Montefiore Primary Care and Social Internal Medicine residency where she helped to initiate the residency's program in Kisoro, Uganda. Following residency training, she achieved an MS (Medical Education) and completed a General Internal Medicine fellowship at New York University School of Medicine where she also served as a teaching attending at Gouverneur and Bellevue Hospitals. She has also completed the Facilitator in Training faculty development program through the Academy on Communication in Healthcare (ACH) is now a senior faculty member and guide for their nationally recognized faculty development program. She serves as the President of the Leo M. Davidoff Society, the Einstein teaching society, and chairs the Montefiore Moses/Weiler Internal Medicine Residency's Clinical Competency Committee.

Her research, curricular and program development focuses on doctor-patient and teacher-student communication in clinical skills education. She regularly leads faculty development efforts locally and nationally in promoting skills in patient centered and relationship centered care for clinicians and within teams, in the areas of feedback, communication, coaching and teaching praxis. 

Selected Publications

1.     Jay M, Kalet A, Ark T, McMacken M, Messito MJ, Richter RA, Schlair S, Sherman S, Zabar S, Gillespie C. Physicians’ attitudes about obesity and their relation to competency and patient weight loss: A cross-sectional survey. BMC Health Services Research 2009; 9:106.

2.  Jay M, Schlair S, Caldwell R, Kalet A, Sherman S, Gillespie CC. From the patients’ perspective: The impact of training on resident physicians’ obesity counseling. Journal of General Internal Medicine 2010; 25(5):415-22.

3.    Jay M, Gillespie C, Schlair S, Sherman S, Kalet A. Physicians’ use of the 5As in counseling obese patients: Is the quality of counseling associated with patients’ motivation and intention to lose weight? BMC Health Services Research 2010; 10:159-165.

4. Schlair S, Hanley K, Gillespie C, Disney L, Kalet A, Darby P, Frank E, Spencer E, Harris J, Jay M. How medical students’ behaviors and attitudes affect the impact of a brief curriculum on nutrition counseling. Journal of Nutrition Education Behavior 2012; 44(6):653-7.

5. Schlair S, Moore S, McMacken M, Jay M. How to deliver high-quality obesity counseling in primary care using the 5As framework. Journal of Clinical Outcomes Management 2012; 19:221-9.

6. Frank E, Schlair S, Elon L, Saraiya M. Do U.S. medical students report more training on evidence-based prevention topics? Health Education Research 2013; 28(2): 265-75.

7. Jay M, Gillespie C, Schlair S, Savarimuthu S, Zabar S, Kalet A. The impact of primary care resident physician training on patient weight loss at 12 months. Obesity 2013; 21(1): 45-50.

8. Salamon J, Sherman D, Schlair S.  The metamorphosis of a horse into a zebra: Case report of primary eosinophilic gastroenteritis. Einstein Journal of Biology and Medicine 2013; E1-E5.

9. McEvoy M, Schlair S, Sidlo Z, Burton W, Milan F. Assessing third-year medical students’ ability to address a patient’s spiritual distress during a medical crisis. Academic Medicine 2014; 89(1):66-70.

10. Milburn S, Fried M, Risley M, Schlair S. Student-as-teacher: The creation of a medical student-driven education elective. Medical Education 2016; 50(11): 1156.

11. Schlair S, Dyche L, Milan F. Longitudinal faculty development program to promote effective observation and feedback skills in direct clinical observation. MedEdPORTAL 2017;13:10648. https://doi.org/10.15766/mep_2374-8265.10648

12. Iyer S, Jay M, Southern W, Schlair S. Assessing and counseling the obese patient: Improving resident obesity counseling competence. Obesity Research and Clinical Practice 2018; 12 (2): 242.

13. Cowman K, Mittal J, Weston G, Harris E, Shapiro L, Schlair S, Park S, Nori P. Understanding drivers of influenza like illness presenteeism within training programs: A survey of trainees and their program directors. American Journal of Infection Control. 2019; 47(8):895-901.

14. Jagannath A, Nabors C, Southern W, Schlair S, Conigliaro R. Resident inbox task completion is improved with a single electronic health record (EHR) system. Journal of General Internal Medicine. March 5 2020; online ahead of print. doi: 10.1007/s11606-020-05751-z.