The Walmart Foundation has given $750,000 to support the Northwest Arkansas Community Internal Medicine Residency Program, a partnership among three health care providers that aims to bring more physicians to the region.
The money will go toward covering the program’s first two years of operating costs, including residents’ salaries.
Program is a partnership among the University of Arkansas for Medical Sciences, Mercy Health System Northwest Arkansas in Rogers and the Veterans Health Care System of the Ozarks.
The program, based at UAMS’ campus in Fayetteville, started its first eight resident physicians on June 30. Five are serving residencies at Mercy Health System Northwest Arkansas in Rogers; the other three are at the Veterans Health Care System of the Ozarks in Fayetteville.
All eight will practice at both locations as well as the Residency Continuity Clinic on UAMS’ Fayetteville campus, according to a news release from UAMS. Organizers expect the program to grow over the next two years until there are 24 residents by 2018.
“We are thrilled to partner with the Walmart Foundation to bring more talented physicians to train — and, hopefully, stay — in northwest Arkansas,” Thomas K. Schulz, an associate professor in the UAMS College of Medicine’s Department of Internal Medicine, said in a news release.
The program received accreditation in September from the Accreditation Council for Graduate Medical Education. Residents are trained in internal medicine subspecialties including critical care medicine, cardiology, emergency medicine, geriatric medicine, gastroenterology, oncology and pulmonary disease.
Steve Goss, president of Mercy Clinic Northwest Arkansas, said the residency program is part of an effort to address a doctor shortage, particularly primary care doctors who treat adults and the elderly.
The number of students graduating from schools of medicine and osteopathy is growing, but the number of residencies lags behind, Goss said.
“We believe if we train them here, many of them will stay here,” he said. “It’s another way to attract great physicians.”
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