The newly accredited tuition-free NYU Long Island School of Medicine in Mineola opened its doors to its first class of students this week.
“NYU Long Island School of Medicine is the realization of a bold vision to make medical school attainable without financial hardship to attract the brightest and best students from diverse walks of life into the medical profession,” said Andrew Hamilton, president of New York University.
The school, based in NYU Winthrop Hospital in Mineola, received over 2,400 applications for the 24 available slots this year. Recruiting has already begun for next year’s class, which will include 32 students. For the 2021-22 year, the class size will expand to 40 students and be capped at that number.
The incoming students come from all over the country, including the tristate area, and from universities including Harvard University, Duke University, Vassar College and NYU, as well as SUNY schools like Binghamton and Stony Brook. Nine incoming students are male and 15 are female.
Megan Bader, 25, is a Garden City native who was born in Winthrop Hospital and is one of three Long Islanders in the class. Having completed her undergraduate education at Duke, Bader said she is honored to be part of the new medical school. Bader said she had been accepted in May along with her classmates.
“We’re all really excited,” Bader said. She said the “White Coat” ceremony, a common practice for medical schools, on Friday was a “really humbling experience” that reiterated how excited the faculty is to start teaching.
The inaugural ceremony for the three-year curriculum involved each of the 24 new students reciting a version of the Hippocratic Oath acknowledging a commitment to the tenets of honor, compassion and dignity. White medical coats were then draped upon each student’s shoulder. The event took place at the school’s campus in NYU Winthrop Hospital surrounded by students’ family and friends, as well as school leadership and faculty. Classes for the school started on Monday.
“Our inaugural White Coat Ceremony is an important milestone as our new students journey toward becoming outstanding primary care physicians who we hope will one day serve the regional area,” Hamilton said.
The NYU Long Island School of Medicine (NYU LISOM) is the second medical school to open under NYU. Additionally, full-tuition scholarships were given to all students. The new school’s curriculum, with its focus on primary care, will concentrate on internal and community medicine, pediatrics, OB/GYN, and general surgery.
To sustain its full-tuition scholarship initiative, the medical school will follow the model of the NYU School of Medicine when it became the first major medical school in the U.S. to offer full-tuition scholarships to all enrolled medical program students. The tuition costs of $55,000 per student are funded by “philanthropy” or donations to the school, according to NYU Winthrop spokesperson Anne Kazel-Wilcox.
Bader said that a major goal of the school is to combat a growing issue in the medical field: fewer students are pursuing primary care education in favor of specializations that Bader said could result in higher incomes.
“In the decade ahead, there is expected to be a significant shortage of primary care physicians nationwide. NYU LISOM hopes to inspire its graduates to help fill that void in the New York metro area and on Long Island,” said Dr. Steven Abramson, the chief academic officer for NYU Langone Health.
