The University of Arizona College of Medicine is partnering with Onvida Health in Yuma County to open the first rural medical school branch in Arizona focused on primary care. The program is expected to begin next summer with about 15 students.
A ribbon cutting ceremony was held at the Onvida Health Medical Education Center on West 32nd Street in Yuma to celebrate the announcement. The center will also be the home of the new program.
Onvida President and Chief Executive Officer Robert Trenschel said the partnership will help address the physician shortage in the state.
“If you do not have access to a primary care physician our health outcomes will be poor and that has been proven time and time again,” he said. “For us here it is critical to have a program that can attract students who want to practice rural medicine.”
A University of Arizona study from two years ago found the state meets only about 39 percent of its need for primary care doctors, falling short by about 500 physicians. In rural communities like Yuma, Trenschel said getting a doctor’s appointment can take weeks or even months.
To help remove barriers, students who are accepted and committed to working in rural communities will receive free tuition paid for by Onvida Health. Over the first three years, about 45 students are expected to move through the program.
“It is going to be a significant source of talent for us, access to care will improve. These things take time to build, but you have to start somewhere, and this is the start of that process,” said Trenschel.
The program will be a three year fast track medical degree. Students will spend the first 18 months of coursework in Phoenix before coming to Yuma for 18 months of hands-on clinical training at Onvida Health.
After they earn their medical degree, students can apply for residency programs in Yuma.
Onvida Health already has a well-established residency program where doctors from other states and institutions come to complete their training. The new program is designed to make it seamless for students to study in Yuma for their medical degree and then apply to stay in Yuma for residency, with the goal of encouraging more doctors to practice rural medicine.
Doctor Fred Wondisford, dean of the University of Arizona College of Medicine in Phoenix, says the free tuition will set the program apart.
“This allows them to think about doing something they may not have considered before, which is primary care,” he said. “Primary care doctors are paid less, and once students learn the economics, they start to say I am not sure I can sustain myself with all this debt.”
On average, medical school leaves new doctors with about two hundred thousand dollars in student loan debt.
Kristina Diaz, president of Onvida Health’s medical group, helps oversee the organization’s graduate medical education programs.
Since 2013, the hospital’s residency program has graduated 65 family medicine doctors, with about 34 percent choosing to remain in the community.
She said doctors are much more likely to stay in the communities where they complete their residency and it’s why they have faith the rural medical branch in Yuma will increase doctors in rural communities.
They also hope the program will inspire the younger generation in Yuma.
Diaz says Onvida residents run a mentor program at local high schools to get students thinking about careers in medicine. It is something she wishes she had as a student growing up in Yuma.
“This will complete the pipeline, and it will make it where more kids will see that they can do it because people from where they came from are coming back and saying I did this,” she said.
Recruitment for the Yuma medical school branch is already under way, with the first group of students expected to start in July.