Two graduating medical students who are in love will have the opportunity to continue being together, as they were matched to the same residency program.
Tony Asfour and Katie Goldrick are two of 23 students graduating from the NYU Grossman Long Island School of Medicine in Mineola this spring. They met in class and are now engaged with two dogs.
The couple found out on Match Day, Friday, March 21, that they would both be attending the same residency program at Mount Sinai Morningside/West in Manhattan- something that both said was their dream.
Goldrick is from Wantagh, and she attended George Washington University for her undergraduate degree. She majored in biomedical engineering because, although she wasn’t sure if she wanted to be a doctor, she knew it would give her the prerequisites to attend medical school.
Goldrick applied to NYU Grossman Long Island School of Medicine and said that once she was accepted, it was an opportunity that she couldn’t pass up.
“I was gonna be able to move back home,” she said. “It’s a free-tuition medical school, and it’s only three years as opposed to four, so you really can’t get any better than that. It was just a dream come true.”
Asfour was born in Charlottesville, Va. before moving to Lebanon when he was one. He grew up there before returning to the United States, transferring to the University of Virginia.
Asfour said he found out he was accepted to the same medical school while in Lebanon. Despite telling his advisor that he had always wanted to live in New York, he had never seen Long Island until he showed up for orientation.
Due to the small class size, Goldrick said students mainly had the same classes together and that once they picked a seat, it became their unspoken permanent seat. She showed up to orientation early, but Asfour couldn’t say the same.
“I am a very shy person, and one of the things that I do is I try to show up not super early, especially on the first day with strangers,” he said. “I wanted to avoid having to socialize too much beforehand, and I figured I’d meet them throughout class, so I came a little bit late. There was only one seat that was open in class, and it was the one next to Katie.”
The two students said they quickly became friends, as they would frequently chat, watch movies and spend time together. Asfour said he eventually got the courage to tell Goldrick how he felt and the two began dating in February of their first year of medical school.
Four months into their relationship, Asfour brought Goldrick back to Lebanon with him during the summer.
“I flew halfway across the world to meet his friends and his family and stay there for a couple of weeks and it was great,” Goldrick said.
“I think it was that trip to Lebanon, and just how much fun we had and how I saw her with all of my family that I decided next time we come to Lebanon, I was going to propose,” Asfour then said. “I had guesstimated that it was going to be the following summer just because of school.”
The couple said that their second year of medical school was the hardest of their lives due to studying and tests, but each said that it was nice to have the other by their side.
As graduation approached, both began applying for residency programs, something that they knew could possibly separate them.
“We knew no matter what the envelope said, we were still gonna get married and make it work, but it was, were we going to live in separate states? Were we going to live where each person has to commute an hour?” Goldrick said.
Then on March 21, the couple opened those envelopes and discovered that those questions wouldn’t need to be answered.
“Now we’ll live in the residence across the street, hopefully in the resident housing and we get to bring our dogs with us,” she said. “It really is setting us up for a really successful next four years of our relationship and our professional lives.”
NYU Grossman Long Island School of Medicine said that Asfour and Goldrick are among the over 80% of graduates who will remain in the state for residency training, which is crucial to its mission to increase the physician workforce in New York.
“These future physicians will play a crucial role in addressing the healthcare needs of the communities they serve, ensuring that quality and comprehensive medical care is accessible to all,” Gladys Ayala, the dean and professor of medicine at the NYU Grossman Long Island School of Medicine, said.
Asfour’s residency will focus on obstetrics and gynecology while Goldrick’s will focus on anesthesiology. The couple is expecting to get married in October after beginning their programs.
