Episode Transcript
[00:00:00] Speaker A: Hi, everyone. Welcome to the know the news podcast. In this week's episode, we're going to dive into an issue that affects all of us, healthcare and more specifically, the availability of places in Arkansas where people can train to become doctors.
I'm Dave Perozic, managing editor of the Northwest Arkansas Democrat Gazette and your podcast host this week. I want to start by introducing my guest. He's Larry Shackleford, president and CEO of Washington Regional Medical center here in Fayetteville. Larry, thank you for joining me.
[00:00:47] Speaker B: Well, thank you. Appreciate the opportunity to be able to visit today.
[00:00:51] Speaker A: Our topic, as I referred to earlier, is related to the number of medical residency spots in Arkansas. It's a topic our reporter Doug Thompson will cover in a story we at the Democrat Gazette plan to publish this weekend.
Residency training is required after graduation from medical school to become a licensed practicing physician in the United States.
Unfortunately, Arkansas is graduating dozens, if not hundreds more medical students than there are residency slots in the state.
Mr. Scheckler, you could spell it out for us.
What's so important about creating more residency slots in Arkansas and in northwest Arkansas?
[00:01:39] Speaker B: Yes, sir.
As you mentioned, our population in northwest Arkansas has really grown, and that's a good thing. But one of the challenges that we see in northwest Arkansas is the population is growing faster than the number of doctors that we have here. As you mentioned earlier, you can go through your four years of medical school, and although you are a doctor, you have to complete a residency before you're able to practice. And the last data I saw, somewhere north of 200 medical students are finishing medical school in Arkansas. But there are not residency opportunities in Arkansas. So they are oftentimes traveling out of state, great distances. We know that a very high percentage of physicians are going to practice within a close proximity of where they do that residency training. So we have been working very closely with the Northwest Arkansas Council, with UAMs and others to create some residency slots right here in northwest Arkansas. And we're optimistic that when those residents finish, if they've had an opportunity to live in northwest Arkansas for three or four years while they're doing that training, we'll have a high likelihood to be able to keep them at the end of that training.
[00:03:16] Speaker A: Creating places for people to do residencies isn't something that happens overnight, I don't think.
Can you kind of explain the process for how we got here?
[00:03:31] Speaker B: Sure. So Washington Regional has partnered with EUAms for some time and have had a family practice residency here. That's typically a three year program, and you're able to, at the end of that three years, be eligible to sit for your boards and practice at the end of that time.
So what we have done recently, just this last year, we started an internal medicine program.
We were able to expand our family practice program. We were able to add a rural track family practice and have plans to add additional programs. Our goal is to create around 90 new resident slots over the next eight or ten year period of time.
[00:04:31] Speaker A: And do you know how many there are in Arkansas or in northwest Arkansas total now?
[00:04:39] Speaker B: So these are estimates, but I would guess there were probably somewhere between 50 and 60 resident slots in northwest Arkansas, primarily in family practice. There is an internal medicine program at Mercy and Rogers, so this will quite likely allow us to more than double the number of residency opportunities over that period of time.
[00:05:15] Speaker A: And what would you say is the impact on Washington regional and your staff, your patients?
[00:05:26] Speaker B: Well, it's a very positive impact for a couple of reasons.
We have members of our medical staff who really enjoy teaching, and that learning environment, I think is very important. But in terms of patients in our health system, again, growing the number of physicians who are practicing is key and we feel very good about as these programs come on and we're already seeing the ones that are existing, expanding. That's just going to help us grow that number of providers to keep pace with northwest Arkansas as it grows.
[00:06:19] Speaker A: We'll be right back with Larry Sheckford after this brief message.
[00:06:24] Speaker C: If you're enjoying this podcast, consider a newspaper subscription to the northwest Arkansas Democrat Gazette or the River Valley Democrat Gazette. We have a special offer for our podcast listeners, so visit nwanline.com nwapodcast to get started. You can also click the subscribe button on our websites, nwanline.com and rivervallieddemocratgazette.com. Or call us at 479-684-5509 and be sure to say that you're a podcast listener. Now back to the show.
[00:06:55] Speaker A: Doug Thompson spoke to one of the eight residents who began working at Washington regional last June. His name is Colin Carr. He's originally from Peregold, and one of the questions Doug asked him was, are you satisfied with the experience you've had so far during your residency? And here's how Mr. Carr responded.
[00:07:18] Speaker D: I'm definitely satisfied. Yeah, I think, to be honest, I chose here because I had a really good relationship with Dr. Carl Lee. She was my advisor when I was a medical student, so I was super excited that she was going to be the program director. But I also chose it because we were going to be here in Fayetteville I was nervous that it was going to be a first year program and things like that, but I think that everything has gone very smoothly. We have attendings that want to teach and are excited to teach, and you can tell that by the way they treat us and the way they are around us.
We have program directors that, like you said, worked extremely hard to get this program in, in less than two years.
So we have program directors that work really hard. And then everyone in the hospital from top to bottom, has just been super welcoming to having residents in the building, which is, we talk about it in a way that's like, oh, well, it's just going to be the attendings and the program directors that have to change. But nursing, everyone had to change the way they were doing things just for us. Eight.
And I think, number one, I'm grateful, and number two, I'm surprised and excited about how smooth it has gone the first six to seven months.
[00:08:59] Speaker A: Larry, your reaction to that?
[00:09:03] Speaker B: Well, that's what we have all been working so hard. It's so neat to be able to see somebody from Peregold who was at UAMs for medical school and they had the opportunity to come here. There's always risk when there's a brand new program.
But as he said, everybody has worked really hard and everybody is committed to creating a very positive training environment. And to hear one of our residents share that we're meeting and exceeding those expectations is very gratifying.
[00:09:48] Speaker A: So you have eight residents there now and tell me what's next.
You're going to be bringing more on this summer, right?
[00:10:00] Speaker B: Correct. So, as I mentioned, that the internal medicine program is a three year program, so we will be adding next June 8 more residents, and then the following June 8 more. So when the program is fully mature, there will be 24 residents, and as one group graduates, there will be the next group that joins.
So right now we're in the process of doing interviews with senior medical students that are looking at residency opportunities. The process is called a match, where they choose the programs that they would like to go to. The programs choose the residents that they have interviewed. Both groups rank, and then there's a match of this is a program I want to go to with a medical student that we would like to have.
The process that we're going through, that match occurs in March, and then that next group, about 1 July, will join us.
[00:11:17] Speaker A: Okay, great. I think Mr. Carr told us that Fayetteville was his top choice. So he said he was fortunate to.
[00:11:29] Speaker B: Get that, and he was one of our top choices. And that's the neat thing about match.
[00:11:35] Speaker A: Yeah.
Is there anything else that you would like to say about this that we haven't touched on?
[00:11:45] Speaker B: I mean, it truly ties very nicely with the work that the Northwest Arkansas council is doing.
As you may recall, one of the key emphasis that the council has had is can we grow our medical infrastructure? Much like we've grown airport and we've grown highway systems, we've grown water systems, really, medical infrastructure is going to be the key for north northwest Arkansas to be able to continue to grow and to have the quality of life that we've enjoyed. So this is work that Nelson Peacock and Ryan Cork with the council have been working on. They were incredibly helpful with us getting some funding. Very grateful to the Arkansas Legislative Council. We came with the idea that if we could get these programs started, then there's a way with our Medicare reimbursement, we can have an ongoing process of funding these programs moving forward. So this is work of a lot of folks working jointly, together to be able to grow our infrastructure here in northwest Arkansas.
[00:13:17] Speaker A: Great. Well, Larry, I really appreciate your time this morning. Great talking to you and thank you for sharing all the information.
[00:13:27] Speaker B: All right. Thank you, Doug.
[00:13:29] Speaker A: If you're interested in learning more on this subject, catch reporter Doug Thompson's story this weekend, in which he talks to several folks involved in increasing the number of residency slots in Arkansas. I want to share with you a brief preview of some other stories we have coming your way over the next few days.
The wintry weather we've seen this month has forced public school districts to cancel schools several days already, which likely will have many k through twelve students making up the days in June, especially now that the state has all but removed the possibility of using so called alternative methods of instruction. Days education reporter Al Gaspine talks to northwest Arkansas educators about the various impacts these snow days will have.
Members of Fayetteville's resident led arts Council and a consultant team will work together to find ways to grow the city's arts and culture scene.
Our Fayetteville reporter, Stacey Ryburn, will have that story.
Sophomores from the future School of Fort Smith are working to restore a community garden that's been abandoned since the pandemic for the local nonprofit group Antioch for Youth and family, in collaboration with the Sebastian County Conservation Society. Thomas Asente is working on that one for us. Also from Fort Smith, reporter Monica Brick tells us about some moves city directors are making, including establishing a voucher system for the spaying or neutering of dogs and cats in Sunday's what's Up section. Monica Hooper will have a preview of Jagged Little Pill, a play featuring the music of Alanis Morrissett coming to the Walton Arts center next week, and Becca Martin Brown will have a preview of season 39 at Rogers Little Theater that starts this fall.
All of this and more will be available to our subscribers on our tablet and smartphone apps and at our websites, nwaonline.com and rivervalleydemocratgazette.com.
Thanks, as always, for listening. Know the news is a weekly podcast brought to you by the newsrooms of the Northwest Arkansas Democrat Gazette and the River Valley Democrat Gazette. Again, I'm Dave Perozic, your podcast host this week. I wish you a great weekend. And until next Friday, so long.
