PORTLAND — Hafsa and Hammad Sadiq always have done just about everything together.

The 28-year-old fraternal twins were roommates for most of their undergraduate education — despite attending two different colleges in Worcester, Massachusetts — and carpooled every morning from their home in Framingham. They studied for the MCAT together, applied to an overlapping list of medical schools and both chose the University of New England.

They worked at the same dermatology practice as medical assistants (albeit at different locations) and did their clinical rotations at the same site in New Jersey while, again, sharing a home. They even got their first-ever jobs together, back in high school, at Market Basket — she as cashier and he as bagger.

So it made sense that they would “hood” each other during their medical school graduation ceremony at Merrill Auditorium on Friday afternoon.

Hooding is a ceremony where students receiving master’s or doctoral degrees are bestowed with regalia symbolizing their achievement. Typically, the garment is placed by an academic mentor or a family member with an advanced degree.

Hafsa went first Friday, receiving the hood from her brother. After switching places, the two hugged and jumped back and forth in an embrace.

“Everyone told us med school is hard, you can’t do it without a support system,” Hammad said. “And I was like, ‘Oh, I have that in my twin.”‘

The Sadiq twins are originally from Pakistan but lived in many places, including Saudi Arabia, before coming to the U.S. in 2010. Hafsa’s path to medicine was inspired in part by her experience translating at the doctor’s office for her mother, who has diabetes, and being a patient advocate. For Hammad, it was his diagnosis of Crohn’s disease, after years of gastrointestinal pain that went unaddressed while the family didn’t have health insurance.

It wasn’t always an obvious path.

Neither of their parents went to college, and their family often mistrusted medical professionals. Hafsa said she didn’t see her parents receiving culturally sensitive treatment.

“Me pursuing medicine was not just for myself, but also for the women before me, and also representing family members who deserved having that culturally competent care,” she said. “Having someone to talk to who looks like them, speaks like them, who understands their background.”

UNE’s College of Osteopathic Medicine is the only medical school in Maine. The program relocated from Biddeford to a new building in Portland in 2025, which will allow for growing enrollment. This year, 166 graduating students matched with residency programs. More than half will go into primary care specialties like family medicine and pediatrics, where practitioners are in short supply in Maine and nationally. From among the class of 2026, 13 graduates will stay in Maine and nearly 70 will stay in New England.

Starting in July, Hammad will do his residency in physical medicine and rehabilitation at Burke Rehabilitation Hospital, while Hafsa will do hers in anesthesiology at Rutgers Robert Wood Johnson University Hospital. Their jobs — in White Plains, New York, and New Brunswick, New Jersey, respectively — will be about an hour’s drive apart.

“An hour 20,” Hammad said.

“With traffic a little bit more,” Hafsa said.

“Not terrible,” Hammad added. “Not terrible.”

They’ve joked about one day opening a twin pain practice but also are interested in keeping their work separate. Their most important relationship, they said, will be as confidants: sharing advice, technical skills and support as they pursue their separate paths in medicine, diverging for the first time.