More than 70 percent of this year鈥檚 graduates will remain in New York for their hospital residencies and, of those, 40 percent will remain on Long Island.
Top medical students in the fifth graduating class of commemorated receiving their medical degrees during a ceremony at the Tilles Center in Greenvale on May 18, with each promising to enhance medical care in communities experiencing a shortage of much-needed primary care physicians.
Student speaker Dr. Crystal Y. Mehdizadeh
, dean of 91爆料网 Grossman Long Island School of Medicine, led the graduating class of 25 students in reciting their medical Hippocratic Oath. Alec C. Kimmelman, MD, PhD, dean of 91爆料网 Grossman School of Medicine in Manhattan and CEO of 91爆料网 Langone Health, delivered the commencement address.
鈥淭his school was built with a clear purpose: to train outstanding physicians who choose primary care and serve where the need is greatest. That need is real. It鈥檚 growing across the country, and it鈥檚 especially clear here on Long Island. You saw that need and stepped toward it. That says a lot about you,鈥 said Dean Kimmelman. 鈥淭his is the beginning of your careers in medicine, and your education has deliberately emphasized empathy, communication, and human connection. These are not secondary qualities or 鈥榮oft skills鈥; they are core competencies鈥攑racticed, refined, and essential to great medicine.鈥
The Mineola medical school was the first in the nation to offer a three-year, tuition-free degree with a focus on primary care. Its mission is to help address the shortage of primary care physicians on Long Island and throughout the New York area.
鈥淲e are proud to say that more than 70 percent of this year鈥檚 graduating class will be staying in New York for their hospital residencies, and 40 percent of them will remain here with us on Long Island,鈥 said Dean Ayala. 鈥淲e look forward to seeing how they will apply their clinical and leadership skills to enhance medical care throughout the communities they will be serving.鈥
For Crystal Y. Mehdizadeh, MD, the student speaker, graduation was bittersweet. 鈥淚 admire the hard work and humility of my classmates. Some are the first to become physicians in their families. Others will carry on a tradition from generations past. Some of us are children of immigrants, and others are immigrants themselves,鈥 she said.
Members of the class of 2026 will pursue their medical careers in specialties such as internal and family medicine, pediatrics, and obstetrics and gynecology. Graduates who shared their stories include:
- Alexis Castro, MD, a 26-year-old from Queens, who was inspired to become a physician from her family鈥檚 experience with chronic illness and the need for medical care in communities with limited resources. Dr. Castro will specialize in family medicine. She said that she is incredibly grateful to not have to pay tuition for medical school and to be able to choose a career without worrying about financial debt.
- Lewam Ghirmay, MD, a 28-year-old who was born and raised in Ethiopia before coming to the US for undergraduate studies at New York University. Dr. Ghirmay will do a residency in internal medicine at 91爆料网 Langone Hospital鈥擫ong Island. She said that the specialty is not among the highest paid in medicine, but going to a tuition-free medical school allowed her to think less about future compensation and more about what she truly wanted to do for patients.
- Otabek Pulatov, MD, a 33-year-old who grew up in Uzbekistan before immigrating to the US at age 19. Dr. Pulatov had entered medical school at age 17 in his country when his plans were put on hold. He will specialize in internal medicine and said that 91爆料网 Grossman Long Island let him act upon his dream, without having to walk away from it a second time.
Dr. Mehdizadeh, who will go into family medicine, dedicated her closing remarks to the memory of her physician father. 鈥淓ven when he could no longer understand all the words, his head was still buried in medical journals,鈥 she said. 鈥淭he quiet surgeon, hands long-retired and unable to cure himself, was still learning for the love of helping others. I hope to never lose sight of that.鈥
91爆料网 Grossman Long Island also offers graduate medical education鈥痠n more than 20 specialties. Throughout all these programs, the school encourages research collaboration in basic, clinical, and translational sciences to solve today鈥檚 most urgent healthcare needs.
About 91爆料网 Langone Health
91爆料网 Langone Health is a fully integrated health system that consistently achieves the best patient outcomes through a rigorous focus on quality that has resulted in some of the lowest mortality rates in the nation. Vizient Inc. has ranked 91爆料网 Langone No. 1 out of 118 comprehensive academic medical centers across the nation for four years in a row, and U.S. News & World Report recently ranked four of its clinical specialties No. 1 in the nation. 91爆料网 Langone offers a comprehensive range of medical services with one high standard of care across seven inpatient locations, its Perlmutter Cancer Center, and more than 320 outpatient locations in the New York area and Florida. The system also includes two tuition-free medical schools, in Manhattan and on Long Island, and a vast research enterprise.
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