FAYETTEVILLE -- Northwest Arkansas' growing population is pushing the need for more health care workers. The University of Arkansas for Medical Sciences provides local training opportunities to fill the gap in several areas.
Dr. Peter Kohler, vice chancellor for the University of Arkansas for Medical Sciences Northwest, said the system's first doctoral physical therapy program will debut in Fayetteville next year.
Fast Facts
UAMS Northwest
Opened doors in 2007
First medical students arrived in 2009
More than 190 students on campus
Programs include medicine, pharmacy, nursing and health professions
Residents in family medicine, pharmacy and psychiatry
Physical therapy program starting in 2015
Source: University of Arkansas for Medical Sciences Northwest
"This is the first opportunity we've had to have a program situated here and not act as a satellite," he said.
The University of Arkansas for Medical Sciences opened the Northwest Arkansas satellite campus in 2009 in the former Washington Regional Medical Center building on College Avenue.
The physical therapy program will add 24 students in the first year to an expanding satellite campus. The Fayetteville site has 190 students in medicine, pharmacy, nursing and health professions and residents in family medicine, psychiatry and pharmacy.
""Part of our mission is to increase the number of physicians here,"Kohler said.
Fayetteville pharmacist Carl Collier of Collier Drug Store said the Northwest Arkansas expansion is helping meet the area's needs. Collier has served on the University of Arkansas for Medical Sciences Northwest Advisory Board since its inception in 2008.
"This is exactly what we wanted to happen when we started this process," he said. "Our goal was to train more medical professionals here and get them to stay here."
Collier said in the past he traveled to Little Rock to find pharmacists and recruited them to Northwest Arkansas.
"We have great job opportunities here, but it's harder to get people to move once they've established roots somewhere," he said. "Now I can't imagine us not having the medical school up here."
The Association of American Medical Colleges reports that about two-thirds of U.S. physicians remain in the state where they received at least part of their medical education.
Collier said he expects more physical therapists to stay in Northwest Arkansas after the program starts in Fayetteville.
John Jefferson, director of the University of Arkansas for Medical Sciences physical therapy program, said there will be no problem finding the best students to fill the 24 slots that will open each year for the three-year program. He said the average program receives 425 applications for 44 open slots and 99.5 percent of graduates find jobs within six months.
"We are working for healthy aging, for prevention rather than just waiting to treat," he said.
Kohler said the medical school's Northwest Arkansas expansion is far from over. He said school officials are looking at a collaborative effort with the University of Arkansas to start an occupational therapy program.
An internal medicine residency program is going through the approval process. Kohler said he plans on having eight internal medicine residents enrolled in the three-year program in 2015.
The pharmacy program will hit full enrollment next year with 60 students on site.
The physical therapy doctorate is also a three-year program and will have 72 students when it reaches full capacity in 2017, making it the largest discipline on the Fayetteville campus.
NW News on 03/23/2014