SUNY Downstate Residents and Fellows Celebrate Graduation With Virtual Commencement
By Office of Communications & Marketing | Jul 11, 2020
MEDIA CONTACT: John Gillespie | john.gillespie@downstate.edu | (314) 708-9090
Graduates hailed for meeting the challenge of the COVID-19 pandemic in the epicenter of New York City
BROOKLYN, N.Y. (June 11, 2020) – They came to SUNY Downstate fresh from medical school or residency ready to dive into
their chosen specialties. Today, 300 graduates of SUNY Downstate’s residency and fellowship
programs leave as battle-hardened veterans of the worst pandemic in more than 100
years.
Even now, as they prepare for next part of their careers, the COVID-19 pandemic is
changing their experiences. Unable to assemble for a traditional commencement due
to social distancing, a generation that grew up with the Internet celebrated their
achievements with a virtual commencement on Thursday, June 11, 2020 6:00PM, which will be webcast on SUNY Downstate’s YouTube
channel.
“We are proud of this cohort of residents and fellows as they fully embraced the magnitude
of the greatest public health emergency of our lifetime,” said SUNY Downstate President Wayne J. Riley, M.D. “Their presence on the frontlines of care shows their commitment and understanding
of our unique community and underscores why so many of our residents and fellows continue
to work with our unique population.”
“This pandemic will no doubt stand out as the sentinel event in the careers of these
resident’s and fellows,” said Charles Brunicardi, M.D., SUNY Downstate Health Sciences University SVP and Dean
of the College of Medicine. “It has also been transformational to how we approach graduate medical education.”
“Over the course of just a few weeks, we needed to rethink and re-engineer the entire
educational experience,” said Emergency Medicine physician Teresa Smith, M.D., M.Ed., Associate Dean of Medical Education and Affiliations and
Associate Professor of Clinical Emergency Medicine. “Not only did we need to redeploy more than a thousand residents and fellows to direct
care of COVID-19 patients, but we also partnered with the students, the faculty, information
technology and the entire organization to move all of their lectures, grand-rounds
and other educational programs to virtual platforms – innovations that we will continue
to use long after this pandemic, and which we believe will provide a more robust and
enlightened learning experience.”
This year’s class includes 300 physicians completing 21 different residency programs
and 26 fellowship programs. Twenty members of the class will move on to new residencies
and fellowships at SUNY Downstate, while four will join SUNY Downstate as full-time
members of the SUNY Downstate faculty.
SUNY Downstate’s Graduate Medical Education Program is accredited by the Accreditation
Council for Graduate Medical Education (ACGME) and offers residencies and fellowships
in 51 different specialty areas in 22 different clinical department. In 1860, the
program revolutionized medical education by being the first in the United States to
bring the teaching of medicine to the hospital bedside so that physicians were no
longer trained exclusively in classrooms. Today SUNY Downstate trains more than 1000
residents and fellows at more than a dozen major affiliated hospitals, and has the
largest emergency medicine residency program in the United States.
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About SUNY Downstate Health Sciences University
SUNY Downstate Health Sciences University is the borough’s only academic medical center for health education, research, and patient care, and is a 342-bed facility serving the healthcare needs of New York City, and Brooklyn’s 2.6 million residents. University Hospital of Brooklyn (UHB) is Downstate’s teaching hospital, backed by the expertise of an outstanding medical school and the research facilities of a world-class academic center. More than 800 physicians, representing 53 specialties and subspecialties—many of them ranked as tops in their fields—comprise Downstate's staff.
A regional center for cardiac care, neonatal and high-risk infant services, pediatric dialysis, and transplantation, Downstate also houses a major learning center for children with physical ailments or neurological disorders. In addition to UHB, Downstate comprises a College of Medicine, College of Nursing, School of Health Professions, a School of Graduate Studies, a School of Public Health, and a multifaceted biotechnology initiative, including the Downstate Biotechnology Incubator and BioBAT for early-stage and more mature companies, respectively. For more information, visit www.downstate.edu or follow us on Twitter at @sunydownstate.