Welcoming the Next Generation of Humanistic Physicians

“Tonight, Class of 2027 inductees, you are joining a community of champions of humanism in health care,” said Jane Ponterio, M.D. ’81, dean of students and chapter advisor for the New York Medical College GHHS Chapter, as she welcomed those gathered. “We all recognize your dedication and resilience to become truly caring physicians and also advise that your membership into GHHS goes well beyond tonight’s ceremony and extends to your responsibility to serve as role models, advocates, and leaders in humanism in medicine and patient care.”

This year’s recipient of the Leonard Tow Humanism in Medicine Award, Rebecca Martin, M.D. ’08, associate professor of medicine and of family and community medicine and a palliative care physician, delivered the keynote address. “In my work in palliative medicine, I have the privilege of walking alongside patients and families through serious illness, and sometimes through their final days. Yet in many ways, the calling is the same, and it is your calling too. Wherever you go, and into whatever field you enter, you are called to serve those who suffer — those made vulnerable by illness or injury — with diligence and kindness,” she remarked.

She then went on to frame her remarks around the ideas of what physicians do, how they sustain the work, and why it matters.

“Take the word ‘clinical,’ which comes from a word meaning ‘bedside’… This term emphasizes the trust that patients must have in their physicians, as those made to recline are, by definition, placed in a vulnerable position,” she said. “Someone prostrated by disease or accident is in no position to make choices regarding where, when, or in what manner they receive care. They are, instead, at the mercy of those who hopefully understand the relationship to be profoundly imbalanced and seek to prove worthy of that trust.”

After describing the meaning behind several other terms associated with medicine, such as doctor, physician, and attending, Dr. Martin posed the question to the audience of how physicians can live up to the ideals imparted in these titles over the years and decades that span a career in medicine.

“We will regularly encounter suffering that we cannot fix. In those moments, our role is not to provide our answers, but our presence,” advised Dr. Martin. “In palliative care, I am invited daily into spaces of grief. Silence is often the greatest gift I can offer. The work of medicine is sometimes simply to stand in the gap, bearing witness in spaces of suffering where no human solutions exist.”

In closing, she imparted to the students their new responsibility as physicians. “These titles you will soon adopt—doctor, physician, clinician, attending—each carries a long history of meaning, with the power to shape how we understand and live into our work as medical professionals.”

“We must always keep in view our patients’ perspectives, as they face fearful symptoms, confusing jargon, diagnostic uncertainty, physical pain, and emotional and spiritual distress,” continued Dr. Martin. “Because as they do, it is we who navigate that terrain with them. They trust us to do that. In taking your oath as a physician, you bind yourselves to this obligation, willing to bridge the fundamental, if illusory, chasm between patient and doctor.”

Alexandria Patti, SOM Class of 2026, a member of the NYMC GHHS Chapter executive board, reflected on what humanism meant to her by sharing a personal story of when her brother broke his cervical vertebrae in an accident, leaving him paralyzed.

“In those chaotic post-accident days, our family realized that everyone’s favorite doctors weren’t just the most knowledgeable, but the ones who were most capable of connecting with us as people,” recalled Patti. “They acknowledged how the big changes ahead would be more than simply medical in nature, and they sat with my family as we started to process those changes. That validation that they provided is where humanism in medicine lies. Recognizing the human experience within the context of disease and disorder, and working to help patients through that experience, makes a humanistic physician.”

As each student stepped forward for induction, they were draped with a gold cord and presented with a GHHS pin by Dr. Ponterio. A brief tribute—read by co-presidents Sarah Ampalloor and Audrey Huang, SOM Class of 2026, and Selection Committee Chair Elisheva Eisenberg—highlighted how each embodies the spirit of a humanistic physician.

The event closed with the recitation by the new inductees of the GHHS oath, led by Susan Rachlin, M.D., senior associate dean for student affairs.

Class of 2027 GHHS Inductees

Elizabeth Abraham
Alexa Colinco
Jacqueline Contento
Lauren De La Torre
Deepika Dilip
Kelsey Douglas
Roni Farkash
Mary Fatehi
Kelly Fisher
Keelyn Foley
Raey Gesese
Nourelhoda Gouda
Kyla Holbrook
Justin Levin
Ying Liu
Bethany Lum
Kona Menyonga
Mahnoor Naeem
Oserekpamen Omobhude
Salwa Raheel
Edward Rajasingham
Margot Richards
Andrew Romano
Jared Sasaki
Balpreet Sasan
Atara Schulhof
Paul Teng
Lauren Tetelbaun
Rachael Villari
Lucy Wang
Jenny Yang
Amber Zhao
Elvan Ziyalan