Alumni of NYU Grossman Long Island School of Medicine’s Geriatric Medicine Fellowship describe their experiences and highlights from training in our program.

Class of 2022

Rita Iyer, MD

The Geriatric Medicine Fellowship has provided the perfect balance of a challenging and nurturing learning environment. I’ve gained experience in a wide variety of settings, between inpatient, nursing home, outpatient, and home visits. I’ve learned a lot about time management while seeing patients in these multiple settings. The attending faculty and staff have been extremely supportive and approachable. I love working with this patient demographic and learning about the unique challenges that come with caring for the geriatric population.

Class of 2021

Anchela Rajeshwaran, MD

The Geriatric Medicine Fellowship showed me the importance of individualized care and using a multidisciplinary approach to impact a patient’s quality of life. My training experience enhanced my knowledge and skills, while also teaching me that sometimes intervening less does more for the patient. It was a very supportive environment. The training I received at the NYU Langone Hospital—Long Island Simulation Center on using percutaneous endoscopic gastrostomy tubes in patients with dementia was a saving grace during a family meeting in my first week as an attending.

Farkhunda Raza, MD

The Geriatric Medicine Fellowship is an advanced and well-structured training program. I’m proud to have been a part of it. The attendings, social worker, and nursing staff were extremely welcoming and supportive and make this program truly outstanding. The attendings are knowledgeable, easy to approach, encouraging, and eager to teach. While working with them, I felt like I was given the independence to create my own treatment plans while seeing patients. This played a key role in helping me gain confidence to work independently in the real world. Without any doubt, I can say that this is the place where I grew a lot as an independent and confident physician.

Class of 2020

Seth Blustein, MD

I only have good things to say about the Geriatric Medicine Fellowship. To this date, every time I greet a patient with delirium or cognitive impairment on the inpatient unit, I start the conversation with, “Have we met before?” as opposed to, “Do you remember me?” This is one of many invaluable tools that I picked up in fellowship that I will carry with me throughout my career.

Jenny Lamichhane, MD

The Geriatric Medicine Fellowship was an academically focused and enjoyable training year. The program provides an effective and meaningful transition for internal medicine and family practice residents to begin successful careers as attending geriatricians. This is a highly rewarding field that requires patience, diligence, and dedication. We learned how treat older adults with medically complicated conditions and how to care for patients socially, while providing supportive services to improve quality of life. This fellowship prepared me to inform patients about their treatment options as well as how to respect patient wishes at the end of life.