University Physicians Healthcare Hospital at Kino Campus has 16 new doctors in training who will focus on community-based medicine and increasing health-care services in rural Southern Arizona.
A sponsorship collaboration between University Physicians Healthcare and the University of Arizona, called the Graduate Medical Education Consortium, eventually plans to bring 118 new residents to Southern Arizona, said Dr. Victoria Murrain, the UA's assistant dean for graduate medical education.
University and hospital officials say the new residency programs could ease a physician shortage in Arizona.
"Our goal is to get them here, train them and get them to experience more rural and community areas," Murrain said. "And hopefully get them to stay."
The 16 new residents, who are medical-school graduates training to become physicians, started on July 1. Ten of the positions are in internal medicine, and six are in psychiatry. The residents will be based at University Physicians' Kino Hospital, 2800 E. Ajo Way, but they will rotate to other hospitals in the Tucson area and medical centers in outlying rural communities, including ones on Indian reservations.
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Many in the internal-medicine program are second- and third-year residents who came from the recently closed Michael Reese Hospital in Chicago, Murrain said. Others are first-year residents who just graduated from medical school, she said.
Two additional residency programs, one in radiology and one in neurology, are set to start next July, and programs in emergency medicine, family medicine and ophthalmology are awaiting accreditation.
Part of the motivation behind starting the residency programs is that the university wants to build up its faculty, and residents are needed for the teachers to work with, Murrain said. University Medical Center had reached the limit of its Medicare financing, which is where most of the money for the residency programs originates.
But University Physicians Hospital, through the formation of the Graduate Medical Education Consortium, had become eligible for Medicare funding, Murrain said.
The programs based out of University Physicians Hospital are more community-based, which is an aspect that will distinguish them from the UA's more research-based residency programs, Murrain said.
The new residents will be UA employees, and their salaries start at about $42,000, increasing with experience.
Dr. Rebecca Potter, the UA's associate dean for graduate medical education, said the UA's more research-based programs have about 500 residents who are based at the University Medical Center. Those doctors-in-training also work at other hospitals around Tucson, including Kino Hospital.
The new residency programs won't take candidates from the existing programs because of their different focus. Plus, Potter said there's no shortage of candidates who want to come to Southern Arizona.
"We're not competing, because we have enough residents to fill the programs," she said.
Murrain agreed.
"It was rare that we would have to scramble to fill positions," she said.
This year there was an excellent pool of applicants for the new residencies, and Murrain said she only expects that pool to improve.
There's a tremendous need for all types of health-care professionals, from nurses to physicians. Anything that attracts potential doctors to the area is a good thing, said Greg Pivirotto, the president and CEO of University Medical Center.
"The need to train and retain physicians is there," he said.
Did you know
University Physicians Healthcare was formed in 1985 as the medical practice of the physicians in the University of Arizona's College of Medicine.
UPH opened several clinics through the 1980s, and in 2004 it took over operations the county's Kino Community Hospital in a 25-year lease agreement with Pima County.
With the change in control, the hospital's name changed to University Physicians Healthcare Hospital at Kino Campus.