How NYITCOM’s Emigre Physicians Program saves the dreams of immigrant physicians

Tanzina A. Ela, DO, arrived in the United States from Bangladesh in 2017 with bachelor of medicine and bachelor of surgery (MBBS) medical degrees, an internship behind her and the expectation that her life was finally beginning. Instead, life as she knew it was ending. The arranged marriage she entered months earlier became violent fast, stripping her of safety long before she could say the word “escape.” When she finally fled, she had no family in the U.S. and no financial cushion.

But she did have the belief that she was a physician.

As an international medical graduate (IMG), Dr. Ela could have, like the vast majority of IMGs, pursued postgraduate training and eventually licensure in the U.S. through the ECFMG Certification Pathways. This requires passing Step 1 and Step 2 CK of the United States Medical Licensing Examination (USMLE) and meeting clinical skills and communication skills requirements. After obtaining ECGMG certification, physicians are eligible to participate in the National Resident Matching Program (NRMP). Unfortunately, just 74% of U.S. IMGs were placed in residency programs in the 2025 NRMP Match; the placement rate for non-U.S. IMGs was 60%.

A life-changing program

Dr. Ela found an alternate pathway to practicing medicine in the U.S. that changed her life. She joined the Emigre Physicians Program (EPP) at the New York Institute of Technology College of Osteopathic Medicine (NYITCOM). The EPP retrains physicians who were born and medically educated outside the United States to become U.S.-licensed DOs. The program trains physicians within an accredited American medical school and culminates not only in clinical readiness, but also in a new professional identity as a DO.

It is highly competitive to get into the EPP. Every applicant is already a physician before they apply. Many have completed internships abroad; some have finished residency or a fellowship. Yet the vast majority are not admitted.

“We value candidates who have acquired significant experience practicing as a physician in their home country before emigrating to the U.S.,” said Stephen Dougherty, director of admissions at NYITCOM. “We are also interested to see how close candidates have been able to stay to medicine and healthcare after arriving in the U.S. and if they have pursued further health-related education in the U.S.”

In other words, the program is not looking for somebody who used to be a physician; it is looking for someone who has refused to stop being one. Through interviewing, admissions look for alignment with the mission and values of NYITCOM and with osteopathic medicine as a practice, not just exam scores. Dougherty also notes a set of qualities that predict success once enrolled: “time management, humility, adaptability to new learning styles and a sense of community.” None of these appear on a transcript, but all of them determine whether a student can rebuild a medical career inside a four-year U.S. medical school curriculum.

‘A sense of belonging’

For Dr. Ela, the EPP program was beyond just an academic opportunity. “I wanted to have a community, a sense of belonging and guidance to achieve my goals,” she says.

EPP was also a means of survival for Dr. Ela. “I have no immediate family members in the U.S. and had to find a way to pursue education without having to worry about finances,” she further says. The EPP gave her what life had taken away: structure, community and a future she could work toward rather than run from.

Her breakthrough was clinical rotations. Unlike the shadowing roles that most internationally trained physicians fight to secure, she walked into the hospital as a medical student, not a volunteer on the sidelines. She took histories, presented cases, watched the logic of the American system unfold in real time and learned the subtle art of shared decision-making, a departure from the paternalistic model she grew up with.

Now in her third year of an internal medicine residency at South Brooklyn Health, Dr. Ela is proud to serve one of the most diverse patient populations in New York.

“There is an environment of inclusivity in the hospital that I absolutely love,” said Dr. Ela.

How the EPP works

Applicants selected to interview for the EPP are also required to sit for a dedicated entrance examination unless they choose to submit a qualifying MCAT score. The program tests whether they can perform at the level expected of a U.S. medical student. It admits only those who can prove, in real time, that they are capable of succeeding in the full four-year DO curriculum. The program is exclusive to the Long Island campus and admits a maximum of 35 students per year. EPP students complete the full four-year DO curriculum, are fully integrated with the entering class and are strongly discouraged from working while enrolled, because the workload mirrors that of a traditional U.S. medical school.

Where this program can lead students

Thousands of physicians who trained abroad are in the U.S. but not practicing medicine. Some work as medical assistants, scribes, researchers, phlebotomists or technicians. Others opt for non-clinical jobs. This can be because of scarcity of access; the path to becoming a physician in the U.S. can be restrictive to many foreign doctors who come here right after medical school and lack sufficient experience. The system as a whole is based on one fundamental principle: no U.S. residency, no license. For many foreign-trained doctors, the question isn’t whether they can do the work but whether they will ever get a structured opportunity to do it here. That is the gap a program like the EPP tries to close.

EPP allows the immigrant physicians to become formal medical students and experience every form of support that all U.S. medical students have access to. This framing matters: EPP doesn’t just test whether someone can keep up with U.S. medical education. It supports them in becoming U.S. physicians. Also, as DO graduates, EPP participants are significantly more likely to successfully place into residency programs; in 2025, 99% of DO graduates were placed in residency programs.

Success after years of professional struggle

Faiqa S. Zafar, DO, attended her first white coat ceremony years ago in Pakistan. She was a surgeon once. Then immigration reshuffled the deck, and marriage, motherhood, relocation and the cost of living in New York put time between her and the operating room. She studied every night, built her CV, earned strong letters and applied to Match after Match. Every cycle returned the same answer: not this year.

“I had to do it,” said Dr. Zafar. “I can’t let go of my dream; I had passion to take care of my patients; I am a healer.”

When she joined the EPP, she already had three children, the youngest just one month old. Two more pregnancies followed during the preclinical years. She studied between childcare sessions, delving into her study material when she could.

Experience gave her confidence academically, but emotionally, she had to rebuild herself again and again. She reports that “being a medical student all over again was a very tough decision because of the generational gap I had to face with my classmates, being a mom.”

Today, she is a general surgery resident at St. John’s Episcopal Hospital, caring for underserved patients. Dr. Zafar urges others not to shy away from unknown pathways: “You have to carve the unseen path for your next generation—if you will not knock on that door it will always be closed,” she said.

My personal experience with the program

There is an effect of the EPP that does not appear in program brochures: it exports osteopathic identity into the homes of immigrant physicians, and the next generation grows up seeing the DO degree as a typical route into medicine.

I was a child who had just started middle school when my father, Mohammed Wahidur Rahman, DO, received his white coat as an EPP candidate. I spent time in the NYITCOM library and lecture halls, surrounded by students rebuilding careers that had been interrupted by immigration, not by ambition. I was completely unfamiliar with the term osteopathic. I had no idea about the differences between a DO and an MD. The only thing I comprehended was that the individuals in those rooms were doctors and the treatment of medicine was the DO language.

As I got older, the environment shifted from classroom observer to clinical witness. My father didn’t finish training until I had graduated from university and became a first-year medical student. We didn’t have generational stability or money behind us. What we had was a community of people moving through the same years of training, the same sacrifices and the same expectations.

When it was my turn to choose a pathway into medicine, I chose DO as a high school senior. I entered the BS/DO track through Lake Erie College of Osteopathic Medicine (LECOM)’s Early Acceptance Program. It did not feel like a divergence from the norm; it rather felt like a continuity, as I graduated from university and entered medical school while my father entered private-practice neurology.

Only much later, in clinics and hospitals where DOs had no connection to NYIT and no connection to immigration, did I realize that the clinical culture I recognized was osteopathic medicine itself: the posture, the pace, the attention to the patient rather than to the clock.

The EPP does more than restore careers: It normalizes an identity inside immigrant households. The first generation rebuilds a medical life. The second, like myself, grows up already belonging to it. #DOProud.

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