State’s biggest IM Residency Program celebrates ‘Class of 2026’ graduates

The Internal Medicine Residency Program – Tucson in the University of Arizona College of Medicine – Tucson’s Department of Medicine celebrated its Class of 2026 Awards & Graduation Ceremony for  on Friday, June 12, at Hacienda del Sol Guest Ranch Resort.

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“The evening brought together faculty, staff, residents, family and friends to recognize the accomplishments of our graduating physicians and celebrate the completion of their residency training,” said Laura Meinke, MD, the program’s director, the department’s associate vice chair of education and a professor in the Division of Pulmonary, Allergy, Critical Care & Sleep Medicine. “We were honored to welcome Dr. Bujji Ainapurapu as our keynote speaker.”

Dr. Ainapurapu, a Division of Inpatient Medicine professor, also is an IM Residency Program – Tucson associate program director.

This year’s graduating class included 47 graduates, comprised of five chief residents, 37 categorical residents and five preliminary residents, who spend their intern year training with the IM Residency Program and move on to other residencies afterward.

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“We congratulate our chief residents, Samuel Cheong, DO, Tyler Gloe, DO, Maxwell Hart, MD, MEd, Joshua Sethi, MD, MS, and Vikram Singh, MD, for their exceptional leadership and dedication throughout the academic year,” said Maria Longoria, the program’s associate manager.

Next stop for Dr. Singh is the U of A Division of Cardiology’s Cardiovascular Disease Fellowship, while Drs. Hart and Cheong are headed for gastroenterology fellowships — Dr. Hart at the University of New Mexico and Dr. Cheong here in the Division of Gastroenterology & Hepatology. Dr. Gloe will be a hospitalist with the Southern Arizona VA Health Care System at the Tucson VA Medical Center. And Dr. Sethi will be an advanced heart failure and transplant cardiology fellow at the University of Alabama at Birmingham.

Several individuals were recognized for their outstanding contributions to the residency program:

• Distinguished Research Award: Jesse Ritter, MD, who was a program year 2 or PGY-2 resident in the last academic year, 2025-26; 
• Program Director’s Outstanding Humanism & Professionalism Award: Amrutha Doniparthi, MD, PGY3, who’ll be an IM Residency – Tucson chief resident at the Southern Arizona VA Health Care System in 2026-27; 
• Outstanding Fellow: Adam Knox, MD, who just completed his Pulmonary & Critical Care Medicine Fellowship in the PACCS division here; 
• Outstanding Intern – Categorical: Justin Le, MD, an IM Residency PGY1; 
• Outstanding Intern – Preliminary: Sheyda Mesgarzadeh, MD, PGY1 who’ll be moving to the Advanced Dermatology Residency Program here; 
• Outstanding Resident: Rosemarie Turk, MD, a PGY3 resident who’ll be an IM chief resident covering clinics here in 2026-27; 
• Most Impactful Faculty: Anthony Witten, DO, a Division of Inpatient Medicine associate clinical professor and associate program director for the IM Residency Program here; and
• Exceptional Staff: Jennifer Martinez, MA, at the Banner – University Medical Center South campus IM clinic.

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Other Class of 2026 graduating IM residents included: Tayeb Abbas, MD; Vannessa Adams, DO; Andrew Arbogast, DO; Issa Batarseh, MBBS; Daniel Chan, DO; Grant Collins, MD; Zachary Contursi, DO; Mckenzie B. Cummins, DO; Akira Folk, DO; Xiaoshan Gong, MD; Sabrina Ho, MD; Brady Howard, MD; Paulina Kuzmin, DO; Andrew Lee, MD; Jun Lee, MD; Franklin Liu, MD; Grant Magnon, MD; Numaan Mahmood, MD; Tom Marco, DO; Rama Mouhaffel, MD; Sangkyu Noh, DO; Dallin Ollerton, MD; Hoang Nhat Pham, MD; Stacy Ploom, MD; Enkhtsogt Sainbayar, DO; Colten Sammons, MD; Manmeet Singh, MD; Sabrina Soin, DO; Andrew Sous, DO; Johnny Trinh, MD; William Waidelich, MD; Nathan Walton, MD; Allysha Yasuda, MD; Alejandro Zamora, MD, and Omar Zineldine, MD.

Other graduating preliminary IM interns included: Wesley Chastain, MD; Emily Ploom, MD; Cooper Stateler, MD, and Guangzhe Sun, MD.

“Congratulations to the Class of 2026 and to all this year’s award recipients. We are grateful for your dedication, compassion and commitment to excellence, and we wish our graduates continued success as they begin the next chapter of their careers,” said James K. Liao, MD, chairman of the Department of Medicine and the Robert S. and Irene Flinn Endowed Professor in Medicine.

The program of the 2025-26 IM Residency – Tucson graduation can be found here.

ALSO SEE:
“Robust turnout for IM residents at Research Academic Half-Day competition” | Posted May 19, 2026
“Thirty-one presented with honors at 2026 DOM Education Awards Assembly” | Posted May 7, 2026
“No wind, no rain, just sunshine above big tents at COM-T Research Day Poster Session” | Posted April 22, 2026
“Five DOM trainees benefit from Bressler-Alpert Travel Awards to present on U of A research” | Posted March 4, 2026
“Forty-five soon-to-be medical school graduates MATCH into DOM residency programs” | Posted March 27, 2025

For more photos from the Hacienda del Sol Guest Ranch event, click here.

(Photos courtesy of Noelle Haro-Gomez, UAHS BioCommunications)

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