Owensboro Health and the University of Louisville School of Medicine are partnering to create the first family medicine residency program in Owensboro. The program will be located at Owensboro Health鈥檚 Parrish Medical Building and is scheduled to open on July 1, 2020.
鈥淏y establishing a family residency program in Owensboro, we hope to improve the health of our region for years to come,鈥 said Greg Strahan, president and CEO of Owensboro Health. 鈥淭his program gives Owensboro Health a pivotal role in educating the next generation of physicians and will help meet an important need for more primary care in our area.鈥
The three-year program is expected to open with a class of six resident physicians and admit an additional six physicians each year. Residents will undertake a robust curriculum of classroom studies and clinical rotations, working alongside expert instructors and practicing physicians from a variety of specialties. They also will provide primary care at Owensboro Health鈥檚 family medicine location on Parrish Avenue, which means expanded health care access for area patients.
鈥淧art of our vision for this program is that some physicians will want to continue practicing in Western Kentucky after they have completed their residency,鈥 said Steve Johnson, vice president of government and community affairs for Owensboro Health. 鈥淔or our system to be working toward that vision, with a valuable partner like UofL, is an exciting development for this region.鈥
The agreement between the two health care systems establishes UofL School of Medicine as the program鈥檚 academic sponsor, a key step toward obtaining approval and accreditation by the Accreditation Council for Graduate Medical 成人直播. Under the affiliation agreement, UofL will provide a program director and faculty and also lend its expertise to help the program achieve and maintain accreditation.
鈥淯ofL has achieved success with its family medicine residency program in Glasgow, Ky., in terms of building relationships in the community and improving primary care,鈥 said Brent Wright, MD, UofL School of Medicine associate dean for rural health innovation, and vice chair for rural health and professor in the Department of Family and Geriatric Medicine at UofL. 鈥淲e plan to achieve the same success in Owensboro.鈥
Rural-based graduate medical education programs are important to physician distribution since physicians tend to practice within a 100-mile radius of where they did their residency training, Wright said.
