Graduate Medical Education Program

Produces 17 New Physicians for Arkansas

Aiming to find local solutions to the national shortage of physicians, Baptist Health and UAMS collaborated to create the Graduate Medical Education physician residency program housed in a new building on the BHMC-North Little Rock campus.

In 2022, what had been three years in the making came to fruition—the program produced its first graduating class of 24 physicians who came from points near and far to complete physician residencies in internal medicine and family medicine.

The best part is that 17 of those 24 physicians are doing just what creators of the program hoped: Staying in Arkansas to practice medicine and increase the number of physicians in the state.

And five of those physicians are now working within Baptist Health—including important roles in North Little Rock, Conway, Arkadelphia, and Heber Springs!

By working together, Baptist Health and UAMS are impacting the number of residency opportunities in Arkansas and helping the state better compete with other states for new physicians. Statistics show that where physicians train can have a strong influence in increasing the number of physicians in that community.

In addition to family medicine and internal medicine, two additional residency options for transitional year and psychiatry are also part of the GME program. At their full complement, the programs collectively will graduate 40 physicians into the medical community each year.

The residency programs, ranging in length between one to four years, provide quality training and are accredited by the Accrediting Council of Graduate Medical Education. Residents are part of patient care teams with