TouroCOM News

Five TouroCOM-Middletown students had an experience this summer that many medical professionals never receive: an immersive medical experience in a rural community.

Students hailing from both the tri-state area and considerably further celebrated their entrance to TouroCOM with a week-long orientation program concluding with a barbecue and a block party in Harlem. While the festivities were cut short by a rainstorm, students were happy to discuss their plans and their backgrounds. Students spoke about their desire to have a positive impact on the world and shared a fun fact about themselves.

Medical school was always the destination for the Nigerian-born Moghalu. She graduated high school at 16 and set sail for England’s University of Leeds to study biomedical engineering. Realizing she wanted more flexibility in her education, Moghalu enrolled in Baylor University in Texas. After graduating, she applied to TouroCOM Harlem as a student in the Master of Science Program in Interdisciplinary Studies in Biological and Physical Sciences and then followed Dean of Student Affairs, Dr. Jerry Cammarata to the newly opened Middletown campus when she started the DO program.

Now that TouroCOM students finished their first year of medical school, one might think that they’d take a much-deserved break from their medical studies, especially since it’s their only real summer break during med school. Not these five students.

Students Meghan Beard, Stephanie Chung, Huong Nguyen, Kevin Yiu and Maksim Vaysman took advantage of their summer vacation to pursue research projects inside the medical community. Some students spoke about how pleasant it was to interact with patients after a year of studying; others spoke of the joy of tracing a forgotten patient’s life through their chart history. Each student is working towards publishing something based on their research.

TouroCOM Middletown Student Rishi Thaker was born into a healthcare family.

Few people would find a seventeen-hour flight to the Philippines relaxing, but for three TouroCOM Harlem students who just finished their first year of medical school, the flight was exactly what they needed.

Several hundred friends and family members gathered together on July 24 to celebrate the 135 members of Touro College of Medicine (TouroCOM) Middletown’s Class of 2021 as they donned their white coats and took the first step in their medical school career.

For the two American doctors, their Haitian counterparts and Touro College of Medicine (TouroCOM) Harlem medical student Maxwell Horowitz, there was little they could do for the suffering woman. The cancer in her abdomen had metastasized with physical properties, emerging as a white mass out of her stomach.

Growing up in an impoverished household, TouroCOM student Nasir Malim had a firsthand look at the way income disparity affects quality of healthcare.