| Why did you choose Stony Brook for your residency? |
 “I started at Stony Brook as an undergrad, I stayed for medical school, fellowship and residency, and it’s been a great experience here. I wanted to stay here purposefully because it’s been such a great environment. It has a family-like feeling. People look out for you. We know each other. We laugh in the halls.”
—Wayne Bellucci, MD, internal medicine resident
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 “Yes, I came to Stony Brook because it was near New York City, but I was also attracted to it because it is a large academic center that takes time with its patients. It isn’t just an assembly line putting patients back together and sending them out the door, it’s an institution that prides itself on taking time with patients and working with them, treating the patient as well as the whole family.”
—Nick Vitanza, MD, pediatrics resident
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| What do you like best about Stony Brook? |
 “The learning curve here is so steep and so great, that every time you walk out of this building, you’ve learned something new. There is not a wasted day.”
—Mike Rosen, MD, psychiatry resident
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 “No matter what specialty you go into, you’ll have a good
experience here. Stony Brook has an excellent reputation on Long Island, and anywhere else in the country for that matter, and your education will go with you in years to come.”
—Jenna Giles, MD, psychiatry resident
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 “Everything that you can be exposed to in medicine, I’ve been exposed to.”
—John Asheld, MD, internal medicine resident
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 “The support here is absolutely amazing.”
—Michael Koo, MD, internal medicine resident
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 The clinical faculty is amazing. Everyone has a wealth of knowledge that they are happy to share.”
—Patrick Lynch, MD, nephrology fellow
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 “There is just something about this place that is special.”
—Christine Ahn, MD, emergency medicine resident
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| What would you tell a prospective resident about Stony Brook? |
 "That Stony Brook is a wonderful place to be a resident. It’s a wonderful place to learn and you can get everything out of it that you want to in a residency. There’s this tripod of education and research and service, which I think is balanced very well here and it can be exactly what you make of it.”
I also think Stony Brook has a real sense of institutional pride, and a real sense of community. I like the people here, and most of all I think that there’s a real opportunity to effect change if you wanted—this is an institution that’s always willing to grow—so if you want to make change, not only do you have the opportunity to do that, but everybody will be listening.”
—Andrew Maleson, MD, radiology resident
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“Stony Brook is a great place to come to learn your craft and learn
medicine. In terms of the environment, Stony Brook focuses on people growing not just as doctors, but also as part of our community.”
—Patrick Lynch, MD, nephrology fellow
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“Part of evaluating where you are going to wind up for your training program is looking at yourself and finding out what you want to do with the rest of your life. I think that at Stony Brook you get the direct clinical training that you need to become an excellent care provider and at the same time, there are research opportunities here—and plenty of them—so that you can do whatever you want to do in your career. I think that Stony Brook offers a very appropriate balance of academic goals as well as excellent clinical training that I'll need at the bedside.”
—Travis Bench, MD, cardiology fellow
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| How has being part of an academic medical center added to your experience as a resident? |
“Here, the world is your oyste r. If you want to do research, you can do whatever you want. There is a tremendous wealth of resources here. I’m engaged in a couple of projects that I’m really excited about, and we have all the resources and all the facilities to pursue the projects. This has added a lot of sophistication and depth to my experience as a resident.”
—Andrew Maleson, MD, radiology resident
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 “I think the great thing about being at an academic center like this is that you’re connected either directly or one step away from powerful people in the world of medicine. So either you have professors like we do, who are actually on the panel of one of the associations who write treatment guidelines, or they bring their colleagues in for Grand Rounds. These are high-powered people in the field, on the cutting edge of research. And you are either right next to them or one step away.”
—Gary Fernando, MD, pediatrics resident
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“ There is plenty to do. We have an affiliated undergraduate campus which has the biological sciences where if we, as residents, want to go and do bench research during our free time, our elective time, we have plenty of opportunity to do that. However, we also have a vast amount of clinical opportunities in clinical research with the MDs and PhDs here. So really it runs the gamut of whether you want to be in a lab all day, or you want to see patients. In addition, the number of different speakers Stony Brook brings in here for us during grand rounds plus all the different sorts of lectures and all-resident conferences the school sponsors is fantastic. They get these world-renowned speakers to come in. I think that's the real key to this place. Because it's an academic center, you can bring these types of research grants and people with high academic standing and fantastic lecturers to the program.”
—Rajeev Patel, MD, internal medicine resident
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 “There is so much research here. We’re always up and coming with the latest sort of technology and diagnostic tools. Our faculty makes sure that they always have the most up-to-date articles when we are applying evidence-based medicine to patients. I feel that really makes a difference for patient care as well as our learning.”
—Joyce David, MD, emergency medicine resident
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 “This is the place to come if you want research exposure. Whether it be bench research or epidemiological and clinical research, all residents in our program are required to go through one research project as least—and even better, with all the help and resources you could possibly want made available to you.”
—Gary Fernando, MD, pediatrics resident
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| What has the Stony Brook experience been like for you? |
“What I’ve found is that I love my program because of my colleagues.”
—Elizabeth Garduno, MD, OB/GYN resident
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 “For me, the key has been the atmosphere here at Stony Brook. It's a very rewarding atmosphere in that it offers a sense of community and family. Residency, no matter where you go, is going to be difficult. It's very hard. You are going to have bad days when you're tired, you're going to have great days when you’ve had great successes, but it's the support system around you that really makes it a fun and enjoyable experience and really helps you get through some of those rough times as well. And I can say from personal experience that it has been my mentors here, my residency program director, some of the attendings I've worked with who have helped me through some of the roughest times I've had. I've really enjoyed working with them, and that's why I continue to stay here.”—Wayne Bellucci, MD, internal medicine resident |
 “I started off here as a medical student, went through medical school here and then became a resident in internal medicine, followed that up with a chief residency and since then have been a faculty member. Right now I am actually involved with directing the internal medicine residency program. So Stony Brook has been my home for a very long time. It has been very good to me and I hope I’ve been able to be good to it. I find that this is just a great place to learn. It was a great place to learn medicine and a great place to take care of patients.”
—Rob Reilly, MD, faculty and graduate of the internal medicine residency
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| What do you like about the Long Island location? |
“What isn’t there to like on Long Island? You name it, we have it here.”
—John Asheld, MD, internal medicine resident
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 “I’ve always enjoyed the beauty of being right in the middle, that you could go into New York very easily, but at the same time you can go to some of the best beaches in the world or drive out to the wineries.”
—Diana Garretto, MD, OB/GYN resident
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 “I love the fact that I can just take the ferryright over to Connecticut.”
—Eunice Hagen, DO, pediatrics resident
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 “It's nice to be able to go out to the Hamptons beaches and relax on the weekends after a week of long, hard work.”
—Sushma Krishna, MD, pediatrics resident
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 “There are so many things to do outside, summer or winter.”
—Heather McCaffrey, MD, urology resident
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| “It’s always been such a beautiful place to live but now that I’m married with children, I’m also aware of the importance of the outstanding schools here.”
—Rob Reilly, MD, faculty and graduate of the internal medicine residency
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 “It’s a very family-oriented environment but at any given time I can go back to the city for all the excitement and the thingsthat are happening there.”
—Alexea Gaffney, MD, med/peds resident
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“You’re an hour from New York city, whether by car or train, so it’s easy to finish work and go meet friends and have dinner in the city then still be ready for work the next day.”
—Nick Vitanza, MD, pediatrics resident
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“Long Island is the p erfect geographic location.”
—Travis Bench, MD, cardiology fellow
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