INDIANAPOLIS — Seven new positions for Indiana University School of Medicine residents have been approved by a state board to address Indiana’s critical need for more physicians.
New residency positions in obstetrics and gynecology, psychiatry, and pediatric psychiatry and two positions in each of emergency medicine and family medicine were recently approved by the Indiana Graduate Medical Education Board, which the Indiana General Assembly created in 2015 to address the state’s physician shortage. The state provides seed funding, which is supplemented by Indiana University Health and Eskenazi Health.
“A physician who has served his or her residency in Indiana is more likely to remain in Indiana to practice,” said Michelle Howenstine, MD, senior associate dean for graduate medical education and continuing medical education. “That’s proven statistically and, in fact, Indiana does better than most states when it comes to retaining the physicians trained here. With these additional residency slots, we’ll make headway toward filling the need that Hoosier communities have for physicians.”
The state board also voted to provide funds for IU School of Medicine to develop new residency programs in locations that do not yet offer them.
Fifteen spots for family medicine residents are expected to open in Lafayette to accommodate the first IU School of Medicine – Arnett Family Medicine Residency program, which will be located on the IU Health Arnett Hospital campus in Lafayette, Indiana. The inaugural class of residents is expected to begin July 2018.
More than 60 are expected to open in Southwestern Indiana over four years beginning in 2019.
IUSM also was among several recipients to receive state money to study the feasibility of establishing residency programs elsewhere in the state.
“Over the next couple of years, we’re going to cast a net throughout the entire state to hospitals and clinics that have not had residency programs to find out who is potentially interested,” said Tim Putnam, president and chief executive officer of Margaret Mary Health in Batesville and the state board’s chair. “Any time you have that many leaders starting to ask the questions—‘What does this mean for us?’ and ‘What does this look like?’ and ‘Can we get the next level of talent?’—that’s a pretty exciting discussion.”