Long Island couple lands same medical residency as part of Match Day for future physicians
MINEOLA, Long Island (WABC) -- The road to become a physician is filled with several important milestones, and Friday was one of them.
It's called Match Day, when future physicians learn where they will land a residency position that will proved the critical hands on training they will need. For one couple from Long Island, it was especially significant because they were first student's from their medical school to enroll as a couple hoping to land residency at the same medical facility. And they got their wish.
Tony Asfour and Katie Goldrick -- two of the 23 students at NYU Grossman Long Island School of Medicine -- came with high hopes and a bit of jitters for the occasion with plenty at stake. Asfour and Goldrick recently got engaged, with Asfour popping the question only recently in between their two most important exams. Now, they are both matched in the same program at Mount Sinai Morningside-West.
"I'm crying, I'm shocked," said Goldrick.
Asfour was also emotional after the reveal.
"The fact that I get to go on this journey, this next step with her, is the honor of a lifetime," he said.
NYU Grossman Long Island of Medicine is the only medical school in the country to offer a three-year-tuition free medical degree in primary care. It's mission, really to address the shortage of primary care doctors in New York and nationally.
"What gets lost is the preventative side," said Dr. Gladys Ayala, Dean of NYU Grossman Long Island of Medicine. "The wellness side."
For Joseph Idoko, internal medicine has been a lifelong dream, while for Lily Drohan, her's mother's example as an OB-GYN became her dream.
"I wanted to be part of the great step towards making people feel better," said Idoko. "I felt like this was the way I had to go to do that."
Goldrick and Asfour will be studying anesthesiology and OB-GYN once they move to Manhattan.
"It's fantastic," Asfour said. "We have our two dogs. We get to live together, and no one has to commute."
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