ELMHURST — A group of aspiring doctors from the city are attending medical school thanks to scholarships from the Health and Hospitals Corporation.
The CityDoctors scholarship program awards scholarships worth $1.8 million to students who will, in turn, commit to working in public hospitals and facilities once they graduate.
"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. Eligible 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.
For each year of tuition they receive, they commit to going back a year at one of the HHC's 11 hospitals.
Many of the students said they wouldn't have been able to attend med school without the program's support.
Michelle Rivera said she first wanted to become a doctor while attending Archbishop Molloy High School in Briarwood.
After graduating from Boston University, she worked as a neurology research assistant at NYU Langone Medical Center and also volunteered at New York Presbyterian Hospital/Weill Cornell.
Her favorite part of medicine is "working directly with people and teaching them how to maintain and improve their quality of life," she said in an email interview.
Michelle Rivera in a lab at her med school.
"Having such a profound impact is incredibly rewarding," she added.
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," she said.
Nadya Yasmin Chowdhury took a pre-med honors program at Hillcrest High School in Jamaica, then graduated from Kingsborough Community College and SUNY-Binghamton with science degrees.
Her goal is to become an OBGYN, working specifically with mothers at Queens Hospital, she said.
Chowdhury is paying for med school herself, and the partial scholarship has lifted a burden from on future loans.
"This is truly a dream come true, to be awarded a scholarship that will give me the opportunity to give back the New York City," she said.
Since launching in 2012, CityDoctors has given scholarships to 82 students.
