Meet the Faculty

Mount Sinai South Nassau Family Medicine

Samuel Sandowski, MD
Vice President, Medical Education
Chair, Family Medicine
Doctor Samuel Sandowski is Professor of Family Medicine and Professor of Medical Education at the Icahn School of Medicine at Mount Sinai and Vice-President for Medical Education at Mount Sinai South Nassau (MSSN). He is also Chair of Family Medicine at MSSN and was the past director of our family medicine residency for 20 years. Doctor Sandowski graduated cum laude from the Technion Faculty of Medicine in Israel. After completing his family medicine residency at South Nassau Communities Hospital (now Mount Sinai South Nassau), and a faculty development fellowship at the State University of New York Health Science Center, in Brooklyn, NY (SUNY Brooklyn), he served as Medical Director of the SUNY Brooklyn Family Medicine Center for six years. He returned to South Nassau to assume the role as Program Director. His current responsibilities include oversight of all medical student education, graduate medical education, and continuing medical education (CME) for MSSN, as well as leading the Department of Family Medicine. Doctor Sandowski has served as a member of the New York State American Academy of Family Physicians’ Leadership Commission and was Vice Chair of both their Education Commission and their Public Health Commission. He has published several articles and book chapters, co-edited the textbook, Primary Care, edited Family Medicine: Board Exam Practice Questions: Book 2, and is a reviewer for the journal, American Family Physician. He is a regional and national presenter and is dually boarded in family and adolescent medicine.

Paul Moglia, PhD
Clinical Director of Medical Education
Doctor Paul Moglia obtained an MA in family studies at Fordham University before obtaining his MA and PhD in counseling psychology from Boston College, where he was awarded several graduate assistantships and teaching fellowships. He completed a clinical fellowship from the Department of Psychiatry at Harvard Medical School, studying medical-liaison psychiatry, family therapy, and geriatric neuropsychology. He was the first psychologist to complete a faculty development fellowship at Albert Einstein College of Medicine. He was a peer reviewer for Family Medicine, Journal of Family Practice and American Family Physician for many years and served as a member of the Networking Resource Line, a panel of experts who provide consultation and assistance to residencies throughout the United States. He is author of over 80 articles, from premature birth, familial Down syndrome, hypochondriasis, and behavioral economics to sexuality, divorce in the elderly, death and dying, and medical student engagement. He is widely known for his scholarship as an editor of related health and medical books. He is a co-editor for the Sixth, Seventh, Eighth, and Ninth, five-volume, 3,000-page Magill's Medical Guide.  In 2015, he edited the five-volume, 3,000-page Psychology & Behavioral Health 4th Edition, and its 2023 Fifth Edition.  He is the editor of the first edition, four-volume 1,700-page, Adolescent Health & Wellness. In 2019, he edited the Second Edition of the two-volume Addiction, Substance Abuse and Alcoholism, followed in 2020 with his editing the two-volume, Aging, and the four-volume, Salem Health: Integrative, Complementary, and Alternative Medicine. In 2022, he compiled and edited Parenting: Styles and Strategies. His most recent editorial project is Teens, currently in press.  An award-winning educator, he has made dozens of presentations at national and regional conferences and is Clinical Assistant Professor of Medical Education and Family and Community Medicine at the Icahn School of Medicine at Mount Sinai. He is core faculty for all the residencies here at South Nassau and holds a monthly, inter-specialty, resident-only conference. He runs Journal Club for Family Medicine which has received national recognition for its methodology and at which he inductively teaches research methods and biostatistics.  He teaches the third-year, month-long rotation, Health Systems Management, or as he likes to say, “How to make a living as a physician.” He also runs Balint for each year’s class in both the Family and Internal Medicine residencies.  He serves on the Graduate Medical Education, Continuing Medical Education, Program Directors GME, and Protocol Review committees. In addition to his responsibilities here, he is the past Chair of the New York State Psychological Association’s Listserv Committee and a current member of its Continuing Education Committee.  He is a member of the Society of Teachers of Family Medicine and the Nassau and Westchester County psychological associations, the counties where he maintains a full-time private practice.

Russell Porter, MD
Associate Program Director, Family Medicine
A locally practicing community physician, Dr. Porter ran a busy family medicine practice for over 25 years, admitting to three hospitals, was the Chair of Family Medicine at Mercy Medical Center in Rockville Centre while an active staff physician at Mount Sinai South Nassau during this time. Doctor Porter is board-certified in family medicine, as all our faculty, and obtained certificates of advanced qualification in geriatrics and sports medicine. In addition to running our geriatrics clinic, he precepts regularly at the Family Medicine Center and regularly runs the family medicine inpatient teaching service. Doctor Porter is a Clinical Assistant Professor of Family Medicine at the Icahn School of Medicine at Mount Sinai.

Scott Ippolito, MD
Senior Faculty Attending and Past Chair, Department of Family Medicine
Scott Ippolito, MD, completed his residency in family medicine at Jamaica Hospital Medical Center, Queens, before completing a fellowship in both obstetrics/gynecology and faculty development at the State University of New York Downstate Medical School. After time in private practice, Dr. Ippolito returned to academic medicine, quickly rising to Associate Chair of the Department of Family Medicine at Wyckoff Heights Medical Center, Brooklyn. There he founded and directed their family medicine residency. Doctor Ippolito next served as Chair of the Department of Family Medicine at St. John's Episcopal Hospital, Far Rockaway, where he created both the clinical Department of Family Medicine and its family medicine residency. In 2000, Dr. Ippolito came to Mount Sinai South Nassau as Chair of the Department from which he retired in 2022. In his current role, he serves as part time teaching attending in our family medicine center and is physician advisor of Mount Sinai South Nassau's Employee Health Service. He was a member of the Board of Directors of the New York College of Osteopathic Medicine Education Consortium as well as having served on several leadership boards and committees at both Mount Sinai South Nassau and the Long Island Health Network. Doctor Ippolito is Clinical Professor at the State University of New York Downstate Medical School, Adjunct Associate Professor at the New York Institute of Technology College of Osteopathic Medicine, and Assistant Professor of Family and Community Medicine at the Ichan School of Medicine at Mount Sinai.  He is an active teacher to our residents and students, regularly participating in office-based precepting and patient care.  Doctor Ippolito has published several textbook and review book chapters and is nationally renowned for medical risk mitigation. Locally, he is well known for being a fierce advocate for the specialty and for residency education.

Vivianne Sambour, MD
Faculty Attending, Family Medicine
Dr. Vivianne Sambour is a board certified family medicine-trained hospitalist at Mount Sinai South Nassau with over 11 years of clinical experience. She earned her medical degree from the American University of Antigua College of Medicine and completed her residency in family medicine at Mount Sinai South Nassau. In 2023, Dr. Sambour became a Core Family Medicine Faculty member, focusing on inpatient medicine. Alongside her clinical duties, she serves as the Icahn School of Medicine GME Well-being Champion for the Mount Sinai South Nassau Family Medicine residents, playing a vital role in promoting resident wellness and support throughout their training.

Anthony Lyon, MD
Faculty Attending, Family Medicine
Dr. Anthony Lyon leads the inpatient Family Medicine team in conjunction with Dr. Vivian Sambour. Dr. Lyon’s teaching style combines his fifteen years of Hospitalist experience with numerous independent outpatient studies to bring a more comprehensive approach to the acutely ill patients he attends. His study and practice of ultrasound-guided Sports Medicine and musculoskeletal acupuncture inform a regular review of the relevant anatomy that needs to be considered to arrive at the correct diagnosis. His daily rounds provide the bull-work of the learning that permit residents to master the art of seeing how the numerous components of a complex patient’s presentation are linked, rather than seeing the patient as a set of disparate parts. He hopes to soon contribute his knowledge of ultrasound-guided therapies and MSK medicine to the outpatient setting.

In the hospital, where patients often face big challenges and life-altering decisions, Dr. Lyon stresses the importance of being present during patient encounters and lending a deft ear to the needs of his patients and their families. By doing so, immediate relief can be offered while more long-term issues are resolved, and the opportunity for true connection is possible.

Lincoln Ferguson, MD, MPH, FAAP
Chairman of Pediatrics, Mount Sinai South Nassau
Dr. Lincoln Ferguson is an associate Clinical Professor of Pediatrics for Icahn School of Medicine at Mount South Nassau Hospital where he also serves as Chairman of Pediatrics. Dr Ferguson graduated from medical school at the University of the West Indies, in Kingston Jamaica and went on to complete his pediatric residency at Howard University in Washington D.C. He subsequently completed a Masters in Public Health at The Johns Hopkins University where he was inducted into the National Public Health Honor Society.

Apart from his administrative work, Dr Ferguson cares for a variety of pediatric patients in his primary care office at the Family Medicine Center. He also supervises residents and medical students in the Family Medicine Center as the Pediatric Faculty for the Family Medicine Residency Program.

Dr Ferguson previously served as director of the Pediatric Emergency Department then Pediatric Vice-Chairman before becoming Chairman of Pediatrics in 2022.

Lisa Fiero, MD, FACOG
Faculty Attending, Obstetrics and Gynecology
An in-house laborist on Labor & Delivery, Dr. Lisa Fiero, obtained her medical degree from Florida International University’s Herbert Wertheim College of Medicine before completing residency at Rutgers New Jersey Medical School where she also served as Chief Resident.  Board-certified in Obstetrics and Gynecology, Dr. Fiero is Assistant Professor in the Department of Obstetrics and Gynecology at the Icahn School of Medicine at Mount Sinai.  She sees patients in our ambulatory care Family Medicine office during resident Ob/Gyn Clinic.  She provides, among other services, comprehensive prenatal and obstetric care, preventative health maintenance, family planning, screening for malignancy, diagnosis and treatment of abnormal uterine bleeding, dysmenorrhea, perimenopausal symptoms, and gynecologic surgery.

Robert Cavera, PsyD
Clinical Health Psychologist
Doctor Rob Cavera is a New York State licensed psychologist who serves the Mount Sinai South Nassau Family Medicine as its Clinical Health Psychologist. He provides integrative, patient-centered medical home (PCMH) services that include consultation, assessment, diagnosis, intervention, follow-up, and referrals for our patients with comorbid behavioral-medical disorders. Providing “in the moment” short-term behavioral and cognitive interventions for any age patient, he focuses on patients with high-risk diseases such as diabetes mellitus, peptic ulcer disease, asthma, and hypertension. Doctor Cavera works hand in hand with his faculty preceptor colleagues and adds another layer of education for our residents in the practical application of the biopsychosocial model of health care delivery. He enjoys teaching, offers a monthly behavioral science conference, and mentors our resident physicians on the impact and interrelation of psychological distress on medical diseases and disorders. Doctor Cavera has presented nationally regarding the role of integrating behavioral health in primary care settings, and the effect of integration on patient outcomes. He received his Bachelor of Science degree from Fordham University, and his master's and doctoral degrees from Hofstra University in School-Community Psychology. Prior to working at Family Medicine, Dr. Cavera worked Mount Sinai South Nassau’s Mental Health Counseling Center in Baldwin. His primary area of expertise is post-traumatic stress, anxiety, and depression. He was an adjunct instructor of psychology at Molloy College, where he taught undergraduate and graduate psychology courses. He also maintains a private practice where he treats children, adults, and families with a wide range of psychopathologies.