The Medical Center of South Arkansas in El Dorado will become a UAMS regional campus called South Arkansas Regional Hospital. (Courtesy photo)
New residency slots at two South Arkansas hospitals will provide needed medical training and services in that part of the state, University of Arkansas for Medical Sciences said last week.
The state’s primary medical school is adding 22 family medicine residency slots because of $2.5 million allocated by the Legislature in February, UAMS announced in a news release.
UAMS will use the money as “start-up funds” for the first three years of the residency programs in Crossett and El Dorado, which includes an obstetrics fellowship, Chancellor Dr. Cam Patterson wrote in the university’s funding request to the Joint Budget Committee’s PEER Review subcommittee. The panel approved the request Feb. 26 with no discussion or dissent, and the full committee approved it the following day.
The number of students graduating from Arkansas medical schools has outpaced the state’s number of residencies in recent years, but Arkansas leaders in medical education have been working to add more slots at hospitals throughout the state.
Most physicians practice in the same state where they complete their residencies, and UAMS sponsors roughly 85% of residencies statewide, said Dr. Molly Gathright, executive associate dean for Graduate Medical Education in UAMS’ College of Medicine.
The health system announced in May 2023 that it would train residents at the South Arkansas Regional Hospital in El Dorado in partnership with a local nonprofit. Last week’s news release said UAMS plans to obtain accreditation for the El Dorado facility this year and enroll its first residents in the summer of 2026. The Crossett facility enrolled its first residents last year.
“Expanding training opportunities in this region helps address health care needs and strengthens the local workforce,” Gathright said in a statement to the Advocate. “At the same time, every residency program plays a vital role in improving access to care across the state, and our goal is to support a broad distribution of training opportunities to meet diverse community needs.”
In addition to its main Little Rock campus and the Crossett campus, UAMS trains residents at six other regional campuses throughout the state: Batesville, Fayetteville, Fort Smith, Jonesboro, Pine Bluff and Texarkana. A seventh residency program in Magnolia closed in 2022.
Adding medical residencies to a community boosts the local economy, according to a study released this month by Heartland Forward. The Bentonville-based research organization estimates that gradually adding 275 new medical residents over six years – about 46 per year – would create an additional $465 million in economic activity for Arkansas.
Republican U.S. Sen. John Boozman, an optometrist from Rogers, sponsored multiple bipartisan bills during the last session of Congress to create more residency slots nationwide and retain the doctors that train in those positions, particularly in rural areas. The legislation stalled in committee.
UAMS’ Fayetteville and Crossett locations specifically train family medicine specialists to practice in rural areas. Some of Arkansas’ rural counties do not have hospitals, according to the Arkansas Foundation for Medical Care.
Residents who train in El Dorado and Crossett will be “immersed in south Arkansas-based rural clinical settings,” though they will complete some of their training in Little Rock at both UAMS and Arkansas Childrens Hospital, according to the health system’s announcement last week.
“The current structure of our UAMS sponsored rural training programs – one year in an urban hospital followed by two years at a rural training site – ensures residents gain broad clinical experience while becoming fully immersed in rural practice,” Gathright said. “The hope is that this model increases the likelihood that they will stay and provide care in these communities, improving access for low-income patients and those who must travel long distances for medical services.”
Ashley County, where Crossett is the largest city, had fewer than five full-time primary care physicians per 10,000 people as of 2021, a slight decrease from 2020, according to data from the Arkansas Center for Health Improvement.
Additionally, Arkansas has a shortage of maternal health care providers, particularly in rural areas. Gathright said the obstetrics fellowship funded by the $2.5 million grant will be “crucial to improving access to care” in rural South Arkansas. The fellowship will open July 1 in El Dorado.
The Bradley County Medical Center closed its labor and delivery unit within the past 18 months due to staffing struggles. Bradley County borders both Ashley County and Union County, where El Dorado is the county seat.
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