TYLER, Texas — The University of Texas Health Science Center at Tyler is adding two new accredited residencies.
According to a press release, the residencies will be in surgery and internal medicine.
UTHSCT is one of only a handful of university centers in Texas offering graduate medical education, the three- to seven-year residency programs medical students pursue after completing four years of medical school.
The five-year surgical residency will maintain three available positions per year, while the three-year internal medicine residency will have 20 vacancies per year.
Both new residency programs recently received accreditation and the first residents in the programs will begin in July of 2020.
A new family medicine residency program in Athens is also being developed, and new residents could start as early as 2021. UTHSCT hopes to triple its residency training footprint by 2025, by offering up to 300 resident positions in various core medical disciplines in order to better serve the healthcare needs of the region.
Dr. Emmanuel Elueze, Vice President for Medical Education and Professional Development at UT Health Science Center at Tyler, hopes the additional residency slots will encourage more doctors to permanently settle in Texas after graduation.
"UT Health Science Center at Tyler has a very good track record of keeping our residents in East Texas and in Texas," Dr. Elueze said. "For instance, in our family medicine residency, 40 percent of those who graduate from our program stay in East Texas and 75 percent of our residency graduates stay in Texas."
The new surgical and internal medicine residency programs will start accepting applications in July 2019.
