New York City residents already have access to some of the top medical professionals in not only the country, but the entire world. To make sure that privilege continues, a group of aspiring doctors from the area have been awarded scholarships from the Health and Hospitals Corporation, according to DNAinfo.
The CityDoctors scholarship program awards scholarships worth $1.8 million to students who will then commit to working in public hospitals and facilities in NYC once they graduate. In order to be eligible for the scholarship, candidates must have either graduated from a city high school, lived in the five boroughs for at least five years or have a parent who’s employed by the city. Since launching in 2012, CityDoctors has given scholarships to 82 students.
“As our population ages, and as health care reform orients itself around a preventive care model, more primary care physicians will be sorely needed,” HHC President Dr. Ram Raju said.
This year, 17 students began their program at St. George’s University School of Medicine in Grenada to become doctors. For each year of tuition they receive, they commit to going back a year at one of the HHC’s 11 hospitals in New York City.
Michelle Rivera, who attended Archbishop Molloy High School in Briarwood, said she’s motivated every day by the prospect of being able to work as a doctor in “the city that made me who I am today.”
Nadya Yasmin Chowdhury, who plans to become an OBGYN, took a pre-med honors program at Hillcrest High School in Jamaica, and then graduated from Kingsborough Community College and SUNY-Binghamton with science degrees. She is paying for medical school on her own, so the partial scholarship lifts a huge weight off her shoulders.
“This is truly a dream come true, to be awarded a scholarship that will give me the opportunity to give back to New York City,” she said.
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